WHITEWASH
heart-throb of prayer shook the air. Victoria was glad to be here, to throw herself into the immensity of this sea of faith—herself unbelieving. Only by an effort could she free herself from the mocking of her judgment, and she longed, yearned, to experience the exaltation of the least of these sun-tanned, ignorant tillers of the soil, or the still more romantic faith of those who plough the sea, and sow the wave-furrows with their lives and hopes. The votive ships that hung dimly overhead filled her with visions of the shipwrecks they commemorated, the hairbreadth escapes to which they attested by their presence in the sanctuary. St. Anne's shrine glowed in its concentrated mass of candles, a very saint's glory. The legended statue stood all golden, on the lower table of the altar, where kissing lips might reach the daintiness of the embroidered cloth. The church shook with the dim resonance of chimes, swung far overhead in the bell-tower. The throng, she observed, was lighting tapers at the shrine, and she became aware that each of the pilgrims crowding at her side carried a candle protected by a folded, funnel-
