Then through all his anger and fear a great pang smote him;
for here was his work undone, and one he had loved in Christ laid
low in her sin, in spite of all his labours.
One moment pity possessed him; the next he bethought him how the
people would find him bending above the body of a naked woman, whom
he had held up to them as holy, but whom they might now well take
for the secret instrument of his undoing; and beholding how at her
touch all the slow edifice of his holiness was demolished, and his
soul in mortal jeopardy, he felt the earth reel round him and his
sight grew red.
Already the head of the procession had entered the glen, and the
stillness shook with the great sound of the _Salve Regina_. When the
Hermit opened his eyes once more the air was quivering with thronged
candle-flames, which glittered on the gold thread of priestly
vestments, and on the blazing monstrance beneath its canopy; and
close above him was bent the Bishop's face.
The Hermit struggled to his knees.
"My Father in God," he cried, "behold, for my sins I have been
visited by a demon--" But as he spoke he perceived that those about
him no longer heeded him, and that the Bishop and all his clergy had
fallen on their knees about the pool.
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