A moment later, the woman passed from the rear of the house to
the vestry door of the cathedral. After a minute, seeing no one
near, I followed, came to the front door, entered, and passed up a
side aisle towards the choir. There was no one to be seen, but soon
the woman came out of the vestry and beckoned to me nervously. I
followed her quick movements, and was soon in a narrow stairway,
coming, after fifty steps or so, to a sort of cloister, from which
we went into a little cubiculum, or cell, with a wooden lattice
door which opened on a small gallery. Through the lattices the
nave amid choir could be viewed distinctly.

Without a word the woman turned and left me, and I sat down on a
little stone bench and waited. I saw the acolytes come and go,
and priests move back and forth before the altar; I smelt the
grateful incense as it rose when mass was said; I watched the people
gather in little clusters at the different shrines, or seek the
confessional, or kneel to receive the blessed sacrament. Many who
came were familiar--among them Mademoiselle Lucie Lotbiniere. Lucie
prayed long before a shrine of the Virgin, and when she rose at last
her face bore signs of weeping. Also I noticed her suddenly start as
she moved down the aisle, for a figure came forward from seclusion
and touched her arm. As he half turned I saw that it was Juste
Duvarney. The girl drew back from him, raising her hand as if in
protest, and it struck me that her grief and her repulse of him had
to do with putting Alixe away into a nunnery.

I sat hungry and thirsty for quite three hours, and then the
church became empty, and only an old verger kept a seat by the
door, half asleep, though the artillery of both armies was at work,