de, of the altar, taking care not to touch the pages of the
book. Each time he passed before the tabernacle he made a genuflexion
slantwise, which threw him all askew. Returning to the right-hand side
once more, he stood upright with crossed arms during the reading of the
Gospel. The priest, after making the sign of the cross upon the Missal,
next crossed himself: first upon his forehead--to declare that he
would never blush for the divine word; then on his mouth--to show his
unchanging readiness to confess his faith; and finally on his heart--to
mark that it belonged to God alone.

'_Dominus vobiscum_,' said he, turning round and facing the cold white
church.

'_Et cum spirits tuo_,' answered Vincent, who once more was on his
knees.

The Offertory having been recited, the priest uncovered the chalice. For
a moment he held before his breast the paten containing the host, which
he offered up to God, for himself, for those present, and for all the
faithful, living and dead. Then, slipping it on to the edge of the
corporal without touching it with his fingers, he took up the chalice
and carefully wiped it with the purificator. Vincent had in the
meanwhile fetched the cruets from the credence table, and now presented
them in turn, first the wine and then the water. The priest then offered
up on behalf of the whole world the half-filled chalice, which he next
replaced upon the corporal and covered with the pall. Then once again
he prayed, and returned to the side of the altar where the server let a
little water dribble over his thumbs and forefingers to purify him
from the slightest sinful stain. When he had dried his hands on
the finger-cloth, La Teuse--who stood there waiting--emptied the
cruet-salver into a zinc pail at the corner of the altar.

'_Orate, fratres_,' resumed the priest aloud as he faced the empty
benches, extending and reclasping his hands in a gesture of appeal to
all men of good-will. And turning again towards the altar, he continued
his prayer in a lower tone, while Vincent began to mutter a long Latin
sentence in which he eventually got lost. Now it was that the yellow
sunbeams began to dart through the windows; called, as it were, by the
priest, the sun itself had come to mass, throwing golden sheets of light
upon the left-hand wall, the confessional, the Virgin's altar, and the
big clock.

A gentle creak came from the confessional; the Mother of God, in a halo,
in the dazzlement of her golden cr