face white and holy, lifted as if to keep her eyes from calculation of what distance lay between her and the end of that painful journey.
"She sees nothing of this earth!" Inez whispered as she passed.
"She does not shrink, she puts her dear soft knees down as if they fell on cushions. But look! every step—oh, every step!"
The tiles of the pavement were worn down by the stream of feet that ran over them unceasingly. But there were little bits of granite, set into them, sharpangled and enduring; pebbles of harder substance than the red-baked soil. These stood above the worn surfaces, as if they had been sown by the hands of a calculative torturer, to tear this suppliant's tender flesh. With each step the candles of the two little girls who came behind her revealed dark spots on the chafed red tiles.
They were kneeling along the edge of the vineyard as Gertrudis passed, except here and there one whose curiosity was stronger than his piety, who stood among the vines. The murmur of low-breathed prayers rose softly; at least half the village was there, moved to compassion by this spectacle of sacrifice.
Gertrudis wavered only once in this tortuous march. She had passed more than half the distance when it seemed that the pain of her bleeding knees was more than she could bear. She stopped, swaying as if to fall. The two girls who walked ahead of her continued on, unaware of the break in the sup-
