Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/148

 obliged like any weakling Parisian to lean against a wall or table till the roaring in her ears stopped and the dull heavy fullness in her head subsided. But Jeanne despised people who gave way to little notions like that, and had no intention of putting on any such airs. Certainly not now, when Marise's welfare was at stake.

Of course she must make her prayer for her darling's success, and set a candle burning before Our Lady. The easy way to do this was to step up the street to the Cathedral but Jeanne did not care for the Cathedral, where all the heretic tourists from Biarritz went to stare, and which was as big and bare as the waiting-room of a railway station. How could Our Lady notice one little candle or one old woman there! No, Jeanne was set on lighting her candle in her own half-ruined, dark Church of the Holy Ghost, where the Basques go on pilgrimages to pray before the holy "Flight into Egypt." Our Lady of the Saint-Esprit had already performed many miracles for good Basques.… Oh, for a miracle now!

She began to pray as swiftly and violently as she walked, "Blessed Mother of God, be with her this afternoon! Holy Infant Jesus! Help her! Blessed little Saint Theresa, help my darling!"

She cast herself so vehemently into her supplications that she felt her heart blazing like a torch. She soared high out of her body. She was swinging along through space among the clouds, wrestling with the Saints, clinging to their knees, dominating them by the fury of her prayers.… No, they would not dare refuse her.… She would not give them an instant's peace …!

"Blessed St. Cecilia, stand at her side! Oh, most Holy Mother of God, guide her fingers …!"

"… a way out into life? How could she find it? Other people did … women in books.…" Flora Allen's eyes moving slowly about the room fell on a photograph of the South Portal of the Bayonne Cathedral. It was framed in dark wood with a little Gothic arch at the top. It made her sick to look at it. How much trouble she had taken to get