Unorna's cheek grew very pale, and her unlike eyes
were fierce and dangerous. It was well for her that she could not speak
to Beatrice then, for she wore no mask, and the dark beauty would have
seen the danger of death in the face of the fair, and would have turned
and defended herself in time.
But the sweet singing of the nuns came softly up from below, echoing
to the groined roof, rising and falling, high and low; and the full
radiance of the many waxen tapers shone steadily from the great altar,
gilding and warming statue and cornice and ancient moulding, and casting
deep shadows into all the places that it could not reach. And still the
two women knelt in their high balcony, the one rapt in fervent prayer,
the other wondering that the presence of such hatred as hers should have
no power to kill, and all the time making a supreme effort to compose
her own features into the expression of friendly sympathy and interest
which she knew she would need so soon as the singing ceased and it was
time to leave the church again.
The psalms were finished. There was a pause, and then the words of the
ancient hymn floated up to Unorna's ears, familiar in years gone by.
Almost unconsciously she herself, by force of old habit, joined in the
first verse. Then, suddenly, she stopped, not realising, indeed, the
horrible gulf that lay between the words that passed her lips, and the
thoughts that were at work in her heart, but silenced by the near sound
of a voice less rich and full, but far more exquisite and tender than
her own.
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