The superintendence of all this, combined with the keeping of the little house at St. Mary's, filled Elinor's days so full that she had scant time for grieving; but when Cecil was in bed and asleep, and Elinor sat by the fire alone with memory, then, indeed, the struggle was a bitter one, and often her head was bowed upon the table and the candle-light shone upon a figure shaken by a storm of tears and sobs. Yet each time, after the storm and stress came peace, as she betook herself to her closet and her beads. In nothing has the Catholic faith a stronger hold on men's hearts than in the tie its creed furnishes between the living and the dead, in the belief that the prayers of those who kneel before the altar do still reach forth to help and succor those who lie beneath the pavements of the church. Elinor, too, had her private liturgy addressed to Christopher, which she recited as the bells tolled the hours of devotion. At matins she said,-- "May the coming day grant me opportunity to serve thee and honor thy name!" At prime: "May thine innocence dawn upon those who doubt thee as the glory of the morning rises on the world of shadows!" At vespers: "So ends another day which did separate thee and me." And at complines: "I lay me down to sleep. May our souls meet in the world of dreams here and the world of spirits hereafter!" Elinor never spoke to Father White of Neville, for she knew full well that to the priest he was accursed as a heretic if not as a murderer, and she felt that she could only talk of him with one who held him as she did. Often in these lonely days did her heart yearn toward Peggy, who was known at St. Mary's to have been rescued from the ketch and to have made her home with the Huntoons; but something within her, whether pride or penance, forbade. She remembered the scorn in Peggy's voice as she reproached her with her doubts of Christopher, and she felt how idle it would be now to try to persuade the girl that her faith was as strong as her own. Some day, she told herself, when her prayer had been answered, her struggles rewarded, and she had shown forth Christopher's innocence to the world, then she would write in tender triumph and bid Peggy come to her and be her little sister for life. The chief comfort of all to her troubled soul lay in this task she had set herself as her life-work,--the proving to the world of Neville's innocence. Baffled at every turn, she never gave up, but followed every hint of a clue and rejoiced to find here and there men and women who believed in Neville as earnestly as she.