Little could she dream, in her simplicity, what a power she held over
the man who seemed to her an object of such awful veneration. Little did
she dream that the poor little tinsel cross had such a mighty charm with
it, and that she herself, in her childlike simplicity, her ignorant
innocence, her peaceful tenderness and trust, was raising such a
turbulent storm of passion in the heart which she supposed to be above
the reach of all human changes.
And now, through the golden air, the Ave Maria is sounding from the
convent-bells, and answered by a thousand tones and echoes from the
churches of the old town, and all Christendom gives a moment's adoring
pause to celebrate the moment when an angel addressed to a mortal maiden
words that had been wept and prayed for during thousands of years. Dimly
they sounded through his ear, in that half-deadly trance,--not with
plaintive sweetness and motherly tenderness, but like notes of doom and
vengeance. He felt rebellious impulses within, which rose up in hatred
against them, and all that recalled to his mind the faith which seemed
a tyranny, and the vows which appeared to him such a hopeless and
miserable failure.
But now there came other sounds nearer and more earthly.
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