to bed, when we reach the convent," she said,
looking up with a smile. "I can't imagine why the prince has not come
yet."

"Perhaps he is coming all the time," I answered, "and he'll find us when
we want him worst."

We plodded on after that, looking for the convent, or for any dwelling
where we could stay till morning. But none came in sight, or any person
from whom we could learn where we were wandering. I was growing
frightened, dismayed. What would become of us both, if we could find no
shelter from the cold of a February night?

There were unshed tears in my eyes--for I would not let Minima know my
fears--when I saw dimly, through the mist, a high cross standing in the
midst of a small grove of yews and cypresses, planted formally about it.
There were three tiers of steps at its foot, the lowest partly screened
from the gathering rain by the trees. The shaft of the cross, with a
serpent twining about its base, rose high above the cypresses; and the
image of the Christ hanging upon its crossbeams fronted the east, which
was now heavy with clouds. The half-closed eyes seemed to be gazing over
the vast wintry plain, lying in the brown desolateness of a February
evening. The face was full of an unutterable and complete agony, and
there was the helpless languor of dying in the limbs. The rain was
beating against it, and the wind sobbing in the trees surrounding it. It
seemed so sad, so forsaken, that it drew us to it. Without speaking the
child and I crept to the shelter at its foot, and sat down to rest
there, as if we were companions to it in its loneliness.

There was no sound to listen to save the sighing of the east wind
through the fine needle-like leaflets of the yew-trees; and the mist was
rapidly shutting out every sight but the awful, pathetic form above us.
Evening had closed in, night was coming gradually, yet swiftly. Every
minute was drawing the darkness more densely about us. If we did not
bestir ourselves soon, and hasten along, it would overtake us, and find
us without resource. Yet I felt as if I had no heart to abandon that
gray figure, with the rain-drops beating heavily against it. I forgot
myself, forgot Minima, forgot all the world, while looking up to the
face, growing more dim to me through my own tears.

"Hush! hush!" cried Minima, though I was neither moving nor speaking,
and the stillness was profound; "hark! I hear something coming along the
road, only very far off."

I listened for a