swinging a censer, his voice chanting Latin verses from the service for
the sick, in his hands the sacred elements of the sacrament for the
dying. The priest was fat and heavy, his voice was lazy, his eyes
expressionless, and his robes were dirty. The plaintive, peaceful
sense which the sound of the vesper bell had thrown over Angele's sad
reflections passed away, and the thought smote her that, were it not for
such as this black-toothed priest, Michel would not now be on his way to
England, a prisoner. To her this vesper bell was the symbol of tyranny
and hate. It was fighting, it was martyrdom, it was exile, it was the
Medici. All that she had borne, all that her father had borne, the
thought of the home lost, the mother dead before her time, the name
ruined, the heritage dispossessed, the red war of the Camisards, the
rivulets of blood in the streets of Paris and of her loved Rouen, smote
upon her mind, and drove her to her knees in the forest glade, her hands
upon her ears to shut out the sound of the bell. It came upon her that
the bell had said "Peace! Peace!" to her mind when there should be no
peace; that it had said "Be patient!" when she should be up and doing;
that it had whispered "Stay!" when she should tread the path her lover
trod, her feet following in his footsteps as his feet had trod in hers.

She pressed her hands tight upon her ears and prayed with a passion and
a fervour she had never known before. A revelation seemed to come upon
her, and, for the first time, she was a Huguenot to the core. Hitherto
she had suffered for her religion because it was her mother's broken
life, her father's faith, and because they had suffered, and her lover
had suffered. Her mind had been convinced, her loyalty had been
unwavering, her words for the great cause had measured well with her
deeds. But new senses were suddenly born in her, new eyes were given
to her mind, new powers for endurance to her soul. She saw now as the
martyrs of Meaux had seen; a passionate faith descended on her as it had