"Speaking in that oracular vein of hers, her eyes very big, her face
very grave, she assured me that my horrible old man had no objective
existence. She informed me cheerfully and calmly that he was an image of
my own soul, as it appeared, corrupted and aged and deformed by the sins
of a lifetime, to God and to the Saints. And she added that he was sent
to punish me for my pride in thinking myself different to the common
people, and in seeking to hold myself aloof. Since then," John brought
his anecdote to a term, "I have always knelt in the body of the church,
and I have never again seen my Doppelgänger."

Maria Dolores was silent for a little. They had come to the southern end
of the cloisters, where the buttresses of the Castle walls, all
shaggy-mantled in a green overgrowth of creepers, fall precipitously
away, down the steep face of a natural cliff. They stopped here, and
stood looking off. The rain had held up, though the valley was still
misty with its vapours. Whiffs of velvety air, warm and sweet, blew in
their faces, lightly stirred the dark hair about her brow, and, catching
the flowery edge of her black lace mantilla, set it fluttering.

"That is a very good story," she said, by-and-by, with a sober glance,
behind which there was the glint of laughter. "In view of it, however, I
suppose there will be no use in my delivering a message I am charged
with for you from my friend Frau Brandt."

"Oh?" questioned John. "What message?"

"Frau Brandt has received from the owner of the Castle the privilege of
hearing Mass from the tribune; and she wished me to invite you in her
name hereafter to hear Mass from there with us. But I suppose, in view