It had been her wont to come, punctual to some holy, foreappointed hour, with firm hands folded, with a back that, even in bowing, preserved its pride; with meek eyes, close-lidded; with breathing hushed for the calm passage of her prayer; herself marshalling the procession of her dedicated thoughts, virgins all, veiled even before their God.
Now she precipitated herself with clutching hands thrown out before her; with hot eyes that drank the tears of their own passion; with the shamed back and panting mouth of a Magdalen; with memories that scattered the veiled procession of the Prayers.

They fled before her, the Prayers, in a gleaming tumult, a rout of heavenly wings that obscured her heaven.

When they had vanished a sudden vagueness came upon her.
And then it seemed that the storm that had gone over her had rolled her mind out before her, like a sheet of white-hot iron.

There was a record on it, newly traced, of things that passion makes indiscernible under its consuming and aspiring flame.

Now, at the falling of the flame, the faint characters flashed into sight upon the blank, running in waves, as when hot iron changes from white to sullen red.