"When is this horror to have an end? Only with my life? Am I, indeed,
to pass the remainder of my days within this dismal cell? Days so
happy, till that the happiest of all--its ill-starred night! And my
love so strong, so confident--its reward seeming so nigh--all to be for
nought--sweet dreams and bright hopes suddenly, cruelly extinguished!
Nothing but darkness now; within my heart, in this gloomy place,
everywhere around me! Oh, it is agony! When will it be over?"
It is the English girl who thus bemoans her fate--still confined in the
convent, and the same cloister. Herself changed, however. Though but a
few weeks have passed, the roses of her cheeks have become lilies, her
lips wan, her features of sharper outline, the eyes retired in their
sockets, with a look of woe unspeakable. Her form, too, has fallen away
from the full ripe rounding that characterised it, though the wreck is
concealed by a loose drapery of ample folds. For Soeur Marie now wears
the garb of the Holy Sisterhood--hating it, as her words show.
She is seated on the pallet's edge while giving utterance to her sombre
soliloquy; and without change of attitude continues it:--
"Imprisoned I am--that certain! And for no crime. It may be without
hostility on the part of those who have done it. Perhaps, better it
were so? Then there might be hope of my captivity coming to an end. As
it is, there is none--none! I comprehend all now--the reason for
bringing me here--keeping me--everything. And that reason remains--
must, as long as I am alive! Merciful heaven!"
The exclamatory phrase is almost a shriek; despair sweeping through her
soul, as she thinks of why she is there shut up. For hingeing upon that
is the hopelessness, almost a dead, drear certainty, she will never have
deliverance!
Stunned by the terrible reflection, she pauses--even thought for the
time stayed. But the throe passing, she again pursues her soliloquy,
now in more conjectural strain:--
"Strange that no friend has come after me? No one caring for my fate--
even to inquire! And _he_--no, that is not strange--only sadder, harder
to think of. How could I expect, or hope, he would?
"But surely it is not so? I may be wronging them all--friends--
relatives--even him? They may not know where I am? Cannot! How could
they? I know not myself! Only that it is France, and in a nunnery.
But what part of France, and how I came to it, likely they are ignorant
as I.
"And they may never know! Never find out! If not, oh! what is to
become of me? Father in Heaven! Merciful Saviour! help me in my
helplessness!"
After this frenzied outburst a calmer interval succeeds; in which human
instincts as thoughts direct her. She thinks:--
"If I could but find means to communicate with my friends--make known to
them where I am, and how, then--Ah! 'tis hopeless. No one allowed near
me but the attendant and that Sister Ursule. For compassion from
either, I might just as well make appeal to the stones of the floor!
The Sister seems to take delight in torturing me--every day doing or
saying some disagreeable thing. I suppose, to humble, break, bring me
to her purpose--that the taking of the veil. A nun! Never! It is not
in my nature, and I would rather die than dissemble it!"
"Dissemble!" she repeats in a different accent. "That word helps me to
a thought. Why should I not dissemble? I _will_."
Thus emphatically pronouncing, she springs to her feet, the expression
of her features changing suddenly as her attitude. Then paces the floor
to and fro, with hands clasped across her forehead, the white attenuated
fingers writhingly entwined in her hair.
"They want me to take the veil--the _black_ one! So shall I; the
blackest in all the convent's wardrobe if they wish it--aye, crape if
they insist on it? Yes, I am resigned now--to that--anything. They can
prepare the robes, vestments, all the adornments of their detested
mummery; I am prepared, willing, to put them on. It's the only way--my
only hope of regaining liberty. I see--am sure of it!"