women in the gallery were crying openly.

"Well, the man who can talk like that may open all my letters and
telegrams," said one of the young American women, who was wiping her
eyes without shame.

What I was doing, and what I was looking like, I did not know until the
lady, who had lent me the opera-glasses leaned over to me and said:

"Excuse me, but are you his wife, may I ask?"

"Oh no, no," I said nervously and eagerly, but only God knows how the
word went through and through me.

I had taken the wrong course, and I knew it. My pride, my joy, my
happiness were all accusing me, and when I went to bed that night I felt
as if I had been a guilty woman.

FIFTY-FOURTH CHAPTER

I tried to take refuge in religion. Every day and all day I humbly
besought the pardon of heaven for the sin of loving Martin Conrad.

The little religious duties which I had neglected since my marriage
(such as crossing myself at rising from the table) I began to observe
afresh, and being reminded by Martin's story that I had promised my
mother to say a De Profundis for her occasionally I now said one every
day. I thought these exercises would bring me a certain relief, but they
did not.

I searched my Missal for words that applied to my sinful state, and
every night on going to bed I prayed to God to take from me all unholy
thoughts, all earthly affections. But what was the use of my prayers
when in the first dream of the first sleep I was rushing into Martin's
arms?

It was true that my love for Martin was what the world would call a pure
love; it had no alloy of any kind; but all the same I thought I was
living in a condition of adultery--adultery of the heart.

Early every morning I went to mass, but the sense I used to have of
returning from the divine sacrifice to the ordinary occupations of life
with a new spirit and a clean heart I could feel no longer.

I went oftener to confession than I had done before--twice a week to
begin with, then every other day, then every day. But the old joy, the
sense of purity and cleansing, did not come. I thought at first the
fault might be with my Confessor, for though I knew I was in the
presence of God, the whispering voice behind the grating, which used to
thrill me with a feeling of the supernatural, was that of a young man,
and I asked myself what a young priest could know by experience of the
deep temptations of human love.

This was at the new Cathedral at Westminster, so I