the ceremony of sprinkling it with holy water, I took it back, and set it for the second time on my wife’s soft white little hand—­set it in accordance with the Catholic ritual, first on the thumb, then on the second finger, then on the third, and lastly on the fourth, where I left it in its old place, wondering as I did so, and murmured, “In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, Amen!” whether she recognized it as the one she had worn so long!  But it was evident she did not; her calm was unbroken by even so much as a start or tremor; she had the self-possession of a perfectly satisfied, beautiful, vain, and utterly heartless woman.

The actual ceremony of marriage was soon over; then followed the Mass, in which we, the newly-wedded pair, were compelled, in submission to the rule of the Church, to receive the Sacrament.  I shuddered as the venerable priest gave me the Sacred Host.  What had I to do with the inward purity and peace this memento of Christ is supposed to leave in our souls?  Methought the Crucified Image in the chapel regarded me afresh with those pained eyes, and said, “Even so dost thou seal thine own damnation!” Yet she, the true murderess, the arch liar, received the Sacrament with the face of a rapt angel--the very priest himself seemed touched by those upraised, candid, glorious eyes, the sweet lips so reverently parted, the absolute, reliable peace that rested on that white brow, like an aureole round the head of a saint!

“If I am damned, then is she thrice damned!” I said to myself, recklessly.  “I dare say hell is wide enough for us to live apart when we get there.”

Thus I consoled my conscience, and turned resolutely away from the painted appealing faces on the wall—­the faces that in their various expressions of sorrow, resignation, pain, and death seemed now to be all pervaded by another look, that of astonishment—­astonishment, so I fancied, that such a man as I, and such a woman as she, should be found in the width of the whole world, and should be permitted to kneel at God’s altar without being struck dead for their blasphemy!

Ah, good saints, well may you be astonished!  Had you lived in our day you must have endured worse martyrdoms than the boiling oil or the wrenching rack!  What you suffered was the mere physical pain of torn muscles and scorching flesh, pain that at its utmost could not last long; but your souls were clothed with majesty and power, and were glorious in the light of love, faith, hope, and charity with all men.  We have reversed the position you occupied!  We have partly learned, and are still learning, how to take care of our dearly beloved bodies, how to nourish and clothe them and guard them from cold and disease; but our souls, good saints, the souls that with you were everything—­these we smirch, burn, and rack, torture and destroy—­these we stamp upon till we crush out God’s image therefrom—­these we spit and jeer at, crucify and drown!  There is the difference between you, the strong and wise of a fruitful olden time, and we, the miserable, puny weaklings of a sterile modern age.