er towards the opposite end of the passage, farther and farther
from the hanging lamp. Unorna could hear her own heart beating as she
followed, first to the right, then to the left. There was another light
at this point. The lady had noticed that some one was coming behind her
and turned her head to look back. The delicate, dark profile stood
out clearly. Unorna held her breath, walking swiftly forward. But in a
moment the lady went on, and entered the chapel-like room from which a
great balconied window looked down into the church above the choir. As
Unorna went in, she saw her kneeling upon one of the stools, her hands
folded, her head inclined, her eyes closed, a black veil loosely thrown
over her still blacker hair and falling down upon her shoulder without
hiding her face.

Unorna sank upon her knees, compressing her lips to restrain the
incoherent exclamation that almost broke from them in spite of her,
clasping her hands desperately, so that the faint blue veins stood out
upon the marble surface.

Below, hundreds of candles blazed upon the altar in the choir and sent
their full yellow radiance up to the faces of the two women, as they
knelt there almost side by side, both young, both beautiful, but utterly
unlike. In a single glance Unorna had understood that it was true. An
arm's length separated her from the rival whose very existence made her
own happiness an utter impossibility. With unchanging, unwilling gaze
she examined every detail of that beauty which the Wanderer had so
loved, that even when forgotten there was no sight in his eyes for other
women.

It was indeed such a face as a man would find it hard to forget. Unorna,
seeing the reflection of it in the Wanderer's mind, had fancied it
otherwise, though she could not but recognise the reality from the
impression she had received. She had imagined it more ethereal, more
faint, more sexless, more angelic, as she had seen it in her thoughts.
Divine it was, but womanly beyond Unorna's own. Dark, delicately
aquiline, tall and noble, the purity it expressed was of earth and not
of heaven. It was not transparent, for there was life in every feature;
it was sad indeed almost beyond human sadness, but it was sad with the
mortal sorrows of this world, not with the unfathomable melancholy of
the suffering saint. The lips were human, womanly, pure and tender, but
not formed for speech of prayer alone. The drooping lids, not drawn,
but darkened with faint, uneve