The Ashes had rooms on the first bend of the Grand Canal looking south.
To reach them by land from the Piazza, Kitty had to pass through a
series of narrow streets, or <i>calles</i>, broken by <i>campos</i>, or small
squares, in which stood churches. As she passed one of these churches
she was attracted by the sound of gay music and by the crowd about the
entrance. Pushing aside the leathern curtain over the door, she found
herself in a great rococo nave, which blazed with lights and
decorations. Lines of huge wax candles were fixed in temporary holders
along the floor. The pillars were swathed in rose-colored damask, and
the choir was ablaze with flowers, and even more brilliantly lit, if
possible, than the rest of the church.

Kitty's Catholic training told her that an exposition of the Blessed
Sacrament was going on. Mechanically she dipped her fingers into the
holy water, she made her genuflection to the altar, and knelt down in
one of the back rows.

How rich and sparkling it was--the lights, the bright colors, the
dancing music! "<i>Dolce Sacramento! Santo Sacramento!</i>" these words of an
Italian hymn or litany recurred again and again, with endless iteration.
Kitty's sensuous, excitable nature was stirred with delight. Then,
suddenly, she remembered her child, and the little face she had seen for
the last time in the coffin. She began to cry softly, hiding her face in
her black veil. An unbearable longing possessed her. "I shall never have
another child," she thought. "<i>That's</i> all over."

Then her thoughts wandered back to the party at Haggart, to the scene on
the terrace, and to that rush of excitement which had mastered her, she
scarcely knew how or why. She could still hear the Dean's voice--see the
lamp wavering above her head. "What possessed me! I didn't care a straw
whether the lamp set me on fire--whether I lived or died. I wanted to
die."

Was it because of that short conversation with William in the
afternoon?--because of the calmness with which he had taken that word
"separation," which she had thrown at him merely as a child boasts and
threatens, never expecting for one moment to be taken at its word? She
had proposed it to him before, after the night at Hamel Weir; she had
been serious then, it had been an impulse of remorse, and he had laughed
at her. But at Haggart it had been an impulse of temper, and he had
taken it seriously. How the wound had rankled, all the afternoon, while
she w