proceeding as this might mean made my
heart--my staid, old, methodical heart--throb unwontedly. I hoped that
the gloved hand resting so near to it did not feel its throbbings,
although they sounded in my ears like a hammer on an anvil.

We had reached the railing. Before us rose the altar, with its images
and its unlit tapers, its cloth of gold, and its silver appurtenances. A
stretch of carpeted floor lay between it and us. Directly this side the
railing was a narrow ledge. Salome suddenly bent her knees and rested
them upon this, placed her elbows upon the railing and bent her head in
her hands. For a moment I gazed at the black bowed figure, then found
myself imitating her attitude. In the stillness of the old church we
knelt alone. Around us was utter silence, and the paling light of a dead
day. Perhaps in the dark corners the ghosts of confessed sins were
lurking; above the spot where we knelt many a "_Benedicite_" had fallen
upon humble hearts waiting to receive it. She was praying. Perhaps
confessing to the Great Absolver the sinless sins which bore no crimson
stain, and praying His favor for the ones she loved. As well might a
flower of the fields bow down and breathe out tales of grave misdeeds,
for her heart was like a flower--yea, like the closed cup of a lily at
night, garbed in purity as white as holiness.

I watched her through the fingers I had placed over my face. This surely
was no sin, for my own heart was not still enough for prayer. She was
very still, and only her small ear and a portion of her cheek were
visible. What did this half-stifling feeling mean which rose up in my
throat? I had never seen a woman in prayer, alone. Away back through the
dimly lit aisles which led to a distant boyhood my mind had sometimes
strayed, and viewed a small white figure kneeling at its mother's side
at bedtime. That was myself, and her petitions were doubtless sent up by
the little cot where I lay asleep. A young girl praying! It is as sacred
as the miracle of birth. And by this simple act, this girl had placed in
me a greater trust than words could speak. She deemed me good enough to
be by her side when she approached her Creator--and was I worthy? I
knew I was not. And though my life had been free from those polluting
sins which glow like rubies in the souls of some men, I felt that here I
had no fitting place, that her prayers would be clogged by the
unholiness of my presence. She knelt, immovable as the statued