She pressed both hands to her breast and drew a long breath, for her heart was breaking.

Through her misted eyes she could barely see the shimmer of the cross.
She dropped to her knees, and twisted her hands together in agony.

It was prayer.

There were no words to it, but it was prayer, a wild appeal for aid.
That aid came in the form of a calm that swept on her like the flood of a clear moonlight over a storm-beaten landscape.

The whisper which had come to her before was now a solemn-speaking voice, and she knew what she must do.