le picture of the
Madonna; she was praying aloud; her words were simple but passionately
pathetic; she threw herself and her lover upon the mercy of the Holy
Mother with a trust so absolute, a confidence so infinite, that the monk
could hardly refrain from tears. How had he been blinded! as he looked
and listened the scales fell from his eyes: he humbly owned his error.

The noise of his step startled her; she rose and looked at him
inquiringly. "Maiden," he said, answering her appealing look, "his fate
is in the hands of God, whose ears are ever open to the prayers of those
that fear Him."

Often and often had Jean spoken to her of Father Austin; she loved him
already, but she had yet to fathom the nobleness of his soul. His
single-heartedness and abnegation of self, his tenderness and quick
sympathy (virtues tempering his fierce abhorrence of Paganism), his
stern reprobation of the evil, and his yearning for the good, in the
untutored barbarians among whom he laboured, were gradually revealed in
the discourses which they held daily while Jean lay between life and
death. Reaping and garnering what Jean had sown, he scattered fresh
seed, opening out to her the great history of God in man. Qualities
hitherto unsuspected in her developed; if an apt pupil, she was an
instructive teacher of the wealth of charity and purity that dwells in
an untainted woman's heart. And she had another friend: the hermit
watched over her with touching care and assiduity. He appeared strangely
attracted to her; the holy fathers marvelled to see this rough being,
who had seemed to them an animal to be feared while pitied, caring for
the maiden's comfort with a woman's gentleness: he seemed never weary of
contemplating her, sometimes murmuring to himself as he did so. Any
little delicacy that the island could afford, game, fish, shellfish, was
provided for her by him. Once, thinking her couch hard, he disappeared
and returned bearing, whence none knew, soft stuffs better fitted for
her tender form; on this occasion the whole man seemed transformed, when
he stepped in with a smile in his big frank eyes, and a ruddy glow on
his bronzed scarred cheeks, placed his offering at her feet, and strode
away. Strange, too, to say, Hilda seemed to return the feeling: happy in
the presence of Austin, she was yet with him as the pupil with the
master; but with the recluse she was gentle, affectionate, and even
playful. The monks attempted not to solve the p