ishop of
Pianura a marvellous veil of rose-point made in a Flemish convent; while
on the statue's brow rested the Duke's jewelled diadem.

The Duke himself, seated in his tribune above the choir, observed the
scene with a renewed appreciation of the Church's unfailing dramatic
instinct. At first he saw in the spectacle only this outer and symbolic
side, of which the mere sensuous beauty had always deeply moved him; but
as he watched the effect produced on the great throng filling the
aisles, he began to see that this external splendour was but the veil
before the sanctuary, and to realise what de Crucis meant when he spoke
of the deep hold of the Church upon the people. Every colour, every
gesture, every word and note of music that made up the texture of the
gorgeous ceremonial might indeed seem part of a long-studied and
astutely-planned effect. Yet each had its root in some instinct of the
heart, some natural development of the inner life, so that they were in
fact not the cunningly-adjusted fragments of an arbitrary pattern but
the inseparable fibres of a living organism. It was Odo's misfortune to
see too far ahead on the road along which his destiny was urging him. As
he sat there, face to face with the people he was trying to lead, he
heard above the music of the mass and the chant of the kneeling throng
an echo of the question that Don Gervaso had once put to him:--"If you
take Christ from the people, what have you to give them instead?"

He was roused by a burst of silver clarions. The mass was over, and the
Duke and Duchess were to descend from their tribune and venerate the
holy image before it was carried through the church.

Odo rose and gave his hand to his wife. They had not seen each other,
save in public, since their last conversation in her closet. The Duchess
walked with set lips and head erect, keeping her profile turned to him
as they descended the steps and advanced to the choir. None knew better
how to take her part in such a pageant. She had the gift of drawing upon
herself the undivided attention of any assemblage in which she moved;
and the consciousness of this power lent a kind of Olympian buoyancy to
her gait. The richness of her dress and her extravagant display of
jewels seemed almost a challenge to the sacred image blazing like a
rainbow beneath its golden canopy; and Odo smiled to think that his
childish fancy had once compared the brilliant being at his side to the
humble tinsel-decked