feast had not yet wholly lost its power even over a world that
denied its substance. For nothing at all had happened of importance. A
few more martyrdoms had been chronicled, but they had been isolated
cases; and of Felsenburgh there had been no tidings at all. Europe
confessed its ignorance of his business.

On the other hand, to-morrow, Percy knew very well, would be a day of
extraordinary moment in England and Germany at any rate; for in England
it was appointed as the first occasion of compulsory worship throughout
the country, while it was the second in Germany. Men and women would
have to declare themselves now.

He had seen on the previous evening a photograph of the image that was
to be worshipped next day in the Abbey; and, in a fit of loathing, had
torn it to shreds. It represented a nude woman, huge and majestic,
entrancingly lovely, with head and shoulders thrown back, as one who
sees a strange and heavenly vision, arms downstretched and hands a
little raised, with wide fingers, as in astonishment--the whole
attitude, with feet and knees pressed together, suggestive of
expectation, hope and wonder; in devilish mockery her long hair was
crowned with twelve stars. This, then, was the spouse of the other, the
embodiment of man's ideal maternity, still waiting for her child....

When the white scraps lay like poisonous snow at his feet, he had sprung
across the room to his _prie-dieu_, and fallen there in an agony of
reparation.

"Oh! Mother, Mother!" he cried to the stately Queen of Heaven who, with
Her true Son long ago in Her arms, looked down on him from Her
bracket--no more than that.

* * * * *

But he was still again this morning, and celebrated Saint Silvester,
Pope and Martyr, the last saint in the procession of the Christian year,
with tolerable equanimity. The sights of last night, the throng of
officials, the stately, scarlet, unfamiliar figures of the Cardinals who
had come in from north, south, east and west--these helped to reassure
him again--unreasonably, as he knew, yet effectually. The very air was
electric with expectation. All night the piazza had been crowded by a
huge, silent mob waiting till the opening of the doors at seven o'clock.
Now the church itself was full, and the piazza full again. Far down the
street to the river, so far as he could see as he had leaned from his
window just now, lay that solemn motionless pavement of heads. The roof
of the colonnade showed a fringe of t