The picture which she saw on the wall opposite, across the foot of the bed, was of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was the thing which she had seen oftenest and looked at longest since she had been in the hospital. It hung directly before her eyes as she lay in bed with her head on the pillow. She saw it first on waking and last before sleeping. Sometimes when she awoke suddenly in the middle of the night she could feel the picture still there, watching her in the darkness with mournful eyes. When first she looked at it she realized how crude it was in execution. Its colors were glaring. The Man wore a shining white cloak which he drew back to show underneath a blue garment. On this, placed apparently on the outside of it, was a Sacred Heart of red, girt in thorns. Holy flames proceeded from it, and there was a nimbus of encircling light. She saw that it would have been better if the Sacred Heart had seemed to glow through His garment, instead of being obviously superposed upon it; that softer blue and grayer white and less scarlet red would have been truer tones for a religious picture. She took not a little pride in her critical perceptiveness. But as she lay watching the picture day after day, she appreciated the superficiality of her first judgment of it. She had been looking at colored inks and the marks made by copper plates, not at a symbol of eternity. Does one estimate a put-by baby's slipper, or a lock of someone's hair, or a wedding ring by its intrinsic worth? If the west side print shop which made the picture before her had failed, it could have done nothing else with that subject to portray. All attempts to represent Christ must fail. Rafael had failed. Everyone would fail. Even the Church had failed. There had been bad popes, had there not? But the Church had tried to represent Him. The Church had come nearer to doing so than any other enginery or person. The saintliest persons had belonged to her and died for her and in her. One Church, she knew, He had founded, and left behind Him. One and but one. "Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my church." It was unequivocal. Christ did not say "churches," He said "church." There was but one which He had built. And she had defied it; she had hardened her heart against it; she had sent away its appointed minister in order to exalt herself. Her eyes were drawn again to the Sacred Heart, bound in the thorns which she and hers had placed there. So it had been, so it would be. Christ was crucified again each day, in the hearts of the people whom He loved. Had she not herself also given Him vinegar upon a sponge? She felt the tears trickling down her cheeks as she thought of her own supreme selfishness, and she looked through blurred eyes at the representation of the most supremely unselfish face that mankind has been able to conceive.