s curious to be kneeling
under this savage wall of rock above which the evening star showed itself
in the clear heaven of night. She looked at the star and at the Madonna,
then at the little bunches of flowers, and at Lucrezia's candle. These
gifts of the poor moved her heart. Poverty giving is beautiful. She
thought that, and was almost ashamed of the comfort of her life. She
wished she had brought a candle, too. Then she bent her head and began to
pray that Sebastiano might remember Lucrezia and return to her. To make
her prayer more earnest, she tried to realize Lucrezia's sorrow by
putting herself in Lucrezia's place, and Maurice in Sebastiano's. It was
such a natural effort as people make every day, every hour. If Maurice
had forgotten her in absence, had given his love to another, had not
cared to return to her! If she were alone now in Sicily while he was
somewhere else, happy with some one else!

Suddenly the wildness of this place where she knelt became terrible to
her. She felt the horror of solitude, of approaching darkness. The
outlines of the rocks and of the ruined castle looked threatening,
alarming. The pale light of the lamp before the shrine and of Lucrezia's
votive candle drew to them not only the fluttering night-moths, but the
spirits of desolation and of hollow grief that dwell among the waste
places and among the hills. Night seemed no more beneficent, but dreary
as a spectre that came to rob the world of all that made it beautiful.
The loneliness of deserted women encompassed her. Was there any other
loneliness comparable to it?

She felt sure that there was not, and she found herself praying not only
for Lucrezia, but for all women who were sad because they loved, for all
women who were deserted by those whom they loved, or who had lost those
whom they loved.

At first she believed that she was addressing her prayer to the Madonna
della Rocca, the Blessed Virgin of the Rocks, whose pale image was before
her. But presently she knew that her words, the words of her lips and the
more passionate words of her heart, were going out to a Being before whom
the sun burned as a lamp and the moon as a votive taper. She was thinking
of women, she was praying for women, but she was no longer praying to a
woman. It seemed to her as if she was so ardent a suitor that she pushed
past the Holy Mother of God into the presence of God Himself. He had
created women. He had created the love of women. To Him she wou