Even he was affected by it.

Never before had Antonia seen him walk except with thoughtful and deliberate steps.

She wondered at his appearance; at its suppressed hurry; at a something in it which struck her as suppressed satisfaction.
And the priest was in his heart satisfied; though he was consciously telling himself that "he was sorry for the Senora, and that he would have been glad if the sins of her husband could have been set against the works of supererogation which the saints of his own convent had amassed." "But he is an infidel; he believes not in the saints," he muttered; "then how could they avail him!" Antonia met him at the door.

He said an Ave Maria as he crossed the threshold, and gave her his hand to kiss.

She looked wonderingly in his face, for unless it was a special visit, he never called so near the Angelus.