At first she believed that she was addressing her prayer to the Madonna

della Rocca, the Blessed Virgin of the Rocks, whose pale image was before

her. But presently she knew that her words, the words of her lips and the

more passionate words of her heart, were going out to a Being before whom

the sun burned as a lamp and the moon as a votive taper. She was thinking

of women, she was praying for women, but she was no longer praying to a

woman. It seemed to her as if she was so ardent a suitor that she pushed

past the Holy Mother of God into the presence of God Himself. He had

created women. He had created the love of women. To Him she would, she

must, appeal.

Often she had prayed before, but never as now, never with such passion,

with such a sensation of personally pleading. The effort of her heart was

like the effort of womanhood. It seemed to her--and she had no feeling

that this was blasphemous--as if God knew, understood, everything of the

world He had created except perhaps this--the inmost agony some women

suffer, as if she, perhaps, could make Him understand this by her prayer.

And she strove to recount this agony, to make it clear to God.

Was it a presumptuous effort? She did not feel that it was. And now she

felt selfless. She was no more thinking of herself, was no longer obliged

to concentrate her thoughts and her imagination upon herself and the one

she loved best. She had passed beyond that, as she had passed beyond the

Madonna della Rocca. She was the voice and the heart not of a woman, but

of woman praying in the night to the God who had made woman and the

night.

From behind a rock Gaspare watched the two praying women. He had not

forgotten his padrone's words, and when Hermione and Lucrezia set off

from the cottage he had followed them, faithful to his trust. Intent upon

their errand, they had not seen him. His step was light among the stones,

and he had kept at a distance. Now he stood still, gazing at them as they

prayed.

Gaspare did not believe in priests. Very few Sicilians do. An uncle of

his was a priest's son, and he had other reasons, quite sufficient to his

mind, for being incredulous of the sanctity of those who celebrated the

mass to which he seldom went. But he believed in God, and he believed

superstitiously in the efficacy of the Madonna and in the powers of the

saints. Once his little brother had fallen dangerously ill on the festa

of San Giorgio, the santo patrono of Castel Vecchio. He had gone to the

festa, and had given all his money, five lire, to the saint to heal his

brother. Next day the child was well. In misfortune he would probably

utter a prayer, or burn a candle, himself. That Lucrezia might think that

she had reason to pray he understood, though he doubted whether the

Madonna and all the saints could do much for the reclamation of his

friend Sebastiano. But why should the padrona kneel there out-of-doors

sending up such earnest petitions? She was not a Catholic. He had never

seen her pray before. He looked on with wonder, presently with

discomfort, almost with anger. To-night he was what he would himself have

called "nervoso," and anything that irritated his already strung-up

nerves roused his temper. He was in anxiety about his padrone, and he

wanted to be back at the priest's house, he wanted to see his padrone

again at the earliest possible moment. The sight of his padrona

committing an unusual action alarmed him. Was she, then, afraid as he was

afraid? Did she know, suspect anything? His experience of women was that

whenever they were in trouble they went for comfort and advice to the

Madonna and the saints.




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