ghostly light filled the chamber into which we had come, and made it look much larger than it really was. The roof was lost above us, but there, before us, were the plain, brown, wooden benches forming the pews, and the nave[116] leading down to the altar railing. Along this a worn strip of carpet was placed. Slowly we went forward, awed by the silent majesty of a place of worship. All at once there came to me a realization of the peculiar position in which I was placed—walking down a church aisle with a beautiful girl upon my arm—and my face grew red. I could tell it by the hot tingling at my neck and temples, but the gloom was deep enough to hide it from her. The sudden force of what such a 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.

[116]

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[117] 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,[118] like the closed cup of a lily at night, garbed in purity as white as holiness.

[117]

[118]

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 

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