midnight before
But -- a hacking cough -- a hectic cheek -- a wasting frame , were to blue-eyed Mary the remorseless harbingers of death , and Eustace , standing on her early grave , was in heart a widower : henceforth he had no aim in life ; the cloister was -- so thought he , as many do -- his best refuge , to dream upon the past , to soothe his present sorrows , and earn for a future world the pleasures lost in this . Time , the best anodyne short of what Eustace could not buy at Rome -- true-healing godliness -- alleviates his grief , and makes him less sad , but not wiser ; years pass , the desire of prëeminence in his own small world has hitherto furnished incentives to existence , and he find himself a prior too soon ; for he has nothing more to live for . Yes : there is an object ; the turmoil of small ambition with its petty cares is past , and the now motiveless man lingers in yearning thought on the only white spot in his gloomy journey , the green oasis of his desert life , that dream of early love . He has long loved the fair , quiet image of our Lady of Marrick , unwittingly , for another Mary 's sake ; half-oblivious of the past in scheming for the present , he has knelt at midnight before that figure of the Virgin-mother , and knew not why he trembled ; he thought it the ecstacy of devotion , the warm-gushing flood of calmness , which prayer confers upon care confessed . But now , he sees it , he knows it ; there is , indeed , good cause : how miraculously the white marble face grows into resemblance with _ hers ! _ the same sainted look of delicate unearthly beauty , the same white cheek , so still and unruffled even by a smile , the same turn of heavenly triumph on the lip , the same wild compassion in the eye ! Great God -- he loves again !