had rained down upon her choked heart. She had never
been able to reason about the Divine Presence--she felt it. She had
believed whether she willed it or not. Owen's arguments had made no
difference. Her desire of the Sacrament had more than once altered the
course of her life, and that she should have unconsciously wandered back
to the Passionist Convent, a convent vowed to Perpetual Adoration,
seemed to her to be full of significance.

Father Dalgairn's book had made clear to her that wherever she went and
whatever she did she would always believe in the Divine Presence. His
book had discovered to her the instinctive nature of her belief in the
Sacrament, but it had not widened her spiritual perceptions, still less
her artistic: the delicious terror and irresistible curiosity which she
experienced on opening St. Teresa's _Book of Her Life_ she had never
experienced before. It was like re-birth, being born to a new
experience, to a purer sensation of life. It was like throwing open the
door of a small, confined garden, and looking upon the wide land of the
world. It was like breathing the wide air of eternity after that of a
close-scented room. She knew that she was not capable of such pure
ecstasy, yet it seemed to her very human to think and feel like this;
and the saint's holy rapture seemed as natural--she thought for a
moment--even more natural, even more truly human than the rapture which
she had found in sinful love.

Before she had read a dozen pages, she seemed to know her like her own
soul, though yet unaware whether the saint lived in this century or a
dozen centuries ago. For all she said about the material facts of her
life St. Teresa might be alive to-day and in England. She lived in
aspiration, out of time and place; and like one who, standing upon a
hill top, sees a bird soaring, a wild bird with the light of the heavens
upon its wings, Evelyn seemed to see this soul waving its wings in its
flight towards God. The soul sang love, love, love, and heaven was
overflowed with cries for its Divine Master, for its adorable Master,
for its Bridegroom-elect.

The extraordinary vehemence and passion, the daring realism of St.
Teresa reminded Evelyn of Vittoria. She found the same unrestrained
passionate realism in both; she thought of Belasquez's early pictures,
and then of Ribera. Then of Ulick, who had told her that the great
artist dared everything. St. Teresa had dared everything. She had dared
even to