Yet the few persons lingering over their morning devotions before the shrines in the side aisles saw nothing but a stranger looking at the painting over the altar, and a peasant kneeling on the lowest step deep in prayer.
"I come from watching a fellow-man die," he said at last; "would to God it had been myself!" "Yes!" sighed Felicita, "that would have been best for us all." "You wish me dead!" he exclaimed, in a tone of anguish.
"For the children's sake," she murmured, still looking away from him; "yes! and for the sake of our name, your father's name, and mine.

I thought to bring honor to it, and you have brought flagrant dishonor to it." "That can never be wiped away," he added.
"Never!" she repeated.
As if exhausted by these passionate words, they fell again into silence.
The murmur of whispered prayers was about them, and the faint scent of incense floated under the arched roof.

A gleam of morning light, growing stronger, though the sun was still far below the eastern mountains, glittered through a painted window, and threw a glow of color upon them.
Roland saw her standing in its many-tinted brightness, but her wan and sorrowful face was not turned to look at him.

He had not caught a glance from her yet.

How vividly he remembered the first moment his eyes had ever beheld her, standing as she did now on these very altar steps, with uplifted eyes and a sweet seriousness on her young face! It was only a poor village church, but it was the most sacred spot in the whole world to him; for there he had met Felicita and received her image into his inmost heart.