o place them; and when all was done,
she slipped back again through the chest into the lobby.

The priest and his mother were still in their places, motionless.
Mistress Margaret closed the chest inside and out, beckoned Isabel into
the sitting-room and closed the door behind them. Then she threw her arms
round the girl and kissed her again and again.

"My own darling," said the nun, with tears in her eyes. "God bless
you--your first mass. Oh! I have prayed for this. And you know all our
secrets now. Now go to your room, and to bed again. It is only a little
after five. You shall see him--James--before he goes. God bless you, my
dear!"

She watched Isabel down the passage; and then turned back again to where
the other two were still kneeling, to make her own thanksgiving.

Isabel went to her room as one in a dream. She was soon in bed again, but
could not sleep; the vision of that strange worship she had assisted at;
the pictorial details of it, the glow of the two candles on the shoulders
of the crimson chasuble as the priest bent to kiss the altar or to adore;
the bowed head of the server at his side; the picture overhead with the
Mother and her downcast eyes, and the radiant Child stepping from her
knees to bless the world--all this burned on the darkness. With the least
effort of imagination too she could recall the steady murmur of the
unfamiliar words; hear the rustle of the silken vestment; the stirrings
and breathings of the worshippers in the little room.

Then in endless course the intellectual side of it all began to present
itself. She had assisted at what the Government called a crime; it was
for that--that collection of strange but surely at least innocent
things--actions, words, material objects--that men and women of the same
flesh and blood as herself were ready to die; and for which others
equally of one nature with herself were ready to put them to death. It
was the mass--the mass--she had seen--she repeated the word to herself,
so sinister, so suggestive, so mighty. Then she began to think again--if
indeed it is possible to say that she had ever ceased to think of him--of
Anthony, who would be so much horrified if he knew; of Hubert, who had
renounced this wonderful worship, and all, she feared, for love of
her--and above all of her father, who had regarded it with such
repugnance:--yes, thought Isabel, but he knows all now. Then she thought
of Mistress Margaret again. After all, the nun had a sp