Urged by an inexplicable impulse, the countess warmed the stiff, slender fingers in her own. She fancied that it was giving relief. Higher and higher swelled the tide of feeling in her heart until it overflowed--and--she knew not how, she had risen and pressed a kiss upon the wounds in the poor little hand, a kiss of the sweetest, most sacred piety. She felt as if she were standing by a beloved corpse whose mute lips we seek, though they no longer feel.
She could not help it, and bending down again the rosy lips of the young widow rested on the pale half-parted ones of the statue. But the lips breathed, a cool, pure breath issued from them, and the rigid form grew more pliant beneath the sorrowful caress, as though it felt the reconciling pain of the penitent human soul. But the divine fire which was to purify this soul, blazed far beyond its boundaries in this first ardor. Overpowered by a wild fervor, she flung herself on her knees and adjured the God whose breath she had drunk in that kiss, to hear her. The friend praying at her side was forgotten, the world had vanished, every law of reason was annihilated, all knowledge was out of her mind--every hard-won conquest of human empiricism was effaced. From the heights and from the depths it came with rustling pinions, bearing the soul away on the flood-tide of mercy. The _miracle_ was approaching--in unimagined majesty.
Thousands of years vanished, eternity dawned in that _one_ moment. All that was and is, _was_ not and _is_ not--past, present, and future, were blended and melted into a single breath beyond the boundaries of the natural life.
"If it is Thou, if Thou dost live, look at me," she had cried with ardent aspiration, and, lo!--was it shadow or imagination?--the eyes opened and two large dark pupils were fixed upon her, then the lids closed for an instant to open again The countess gazed more and more earnestly; it was distinct, unmistakable. A shudder ran through her veins as, in a burning fever, the limbs tremble with a sudden chill. She tried to meet the look, but spite of the tension in every nerve, the effort was futile. It was too overpowering; it was the gaze of a God. Dread and rapture were contending for the mastery. Doubtless she said to herself, "It is not _outside_ of you, but within you." Once more she ventured to glance at the mysterious apparition, but the eyes were fixed steadily upon her. Terror overpowered her. The chord of the possible snapped and she sank half senseless on the steps of the altar, while the miracle closed its golden wings above her.