Jenne hillside. The students had probably jested broadly
concerning the devotion of the women to the Saint, and this had enraged
them. The women of Jenne came rushing out of the bakehouse, while the
plumes of a couple of _carabinieri_ appeared in the opposite direction.
Noemi and Maria mingled with the women, trying to pacify them. Giovanni
harangued the students, who swaggered and laughed, and might possibly do
worse. Chanting was heard in the church, muffled at first and then loud,
as the door was thrown open:

"_Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis_."

The two sufferers appeared. The girl, supported on either side, was
walking; the man, as limp as a corpse, was being borne along, some
women carrying his shoulders, others his feet; and the bearers were also
chanting, with solemn faces:

"_Sancta Virgo virginum, ora pro nobis_."

The women in the square all fell on their knees, the astonished
_carabinieri_ standing in their midst. The students were silent, while
a party of ladies and gentlemen, about to enter the square from the Val
d'Aniene mule-path, stopped their mules. First Maria, then Noemi, knelt,
drawn towards the earth by an impulse which made them tremble with
emotion. Giovanni hesitated. This was not his faith. It seemed to him
an offence to the Creator, the Giver of reason, to allow a sick man to
journey a long distance on a mule, that he might be miraculously healed
by an image, a relic, or a man. Still it was faith. It was--enclosed in
a rough envelope of frail ignorance--that sense denied, to proud minds,
of the hidden truth which is life; that mysterious radium within the
mass of impure ore. It was faith, it was guiltless error, it was love,
it was suffering, it was a visible something belonging to the union of
the highest mysteries of the Universe. The ground itself, the great
sad face of the church, and the small humble faces of the little houses
surrounding the square, seem to understand, to reverence it. In his
mind's eye Giovanni saw the image of a dead woman who had been dear to
him, and who had believed thus; a cold wave flowed through his blood,
his knees bent under him. The little band with the sufferers passed on,
singing, their faces uplifted:

"_Mater Christi_." The kneeling women answered with bowed heads:

"_Ora pro nobis_."

Then they rose, and followed the procession, while three or four women
of Jenne said aloud:

"He does not wish it, he does not wish it!"

One of them explained to