Sister Dolorosa had been missed from the convent. There had been
inquiry growing ever more anxious, and search growing ever more
hurried. They found her bucket overturned at the cistern, and near
it the print of her feet in the moist earth. But she was gone. They
sought her in every hidden closet, they climbed to the observatory
and scanned the surrounding fields. Work was left unfinished, prayer
unended, as the news spread through the vast building; and as time went
by and nothing was heard of her, uneasiness became alarm, and alarm
became a vague, immeasurable foreboding of ill. Each now remembered
how strange of late had been Sister Dolorosa's life and actions, and
no one had the heart to name her own particular fears to any other or
to read them in any other's eyes. Time passed on and discipline in the
convent was forgotten. They began to pour out into the long corridors,
and in tumultuous groups passed this way and that, seeking the Mother
Superior. But the Mother Superior had gone to the church with the same
impulse that in all ages has brought the human heart to the altar of
God when stricken by peril or disaster; and into the church they also
gathered. Into the church likewise came the white flock of the novices,
who had burst from their isolated quarter of the convent with a sudden
contagion of fear. When, therefore, the Mother Superior rose from
where she had been kneeling, turned, and in the dark church saw them
assembled close around her, pallid, anxious, disordered, and looking
with helpless dependence to her for that assurance for which she had
herself in helpless dependence looked to God, so unnerved was she by
the spectacle that strength failed her and she sank upon the steps of
the altar, stretching out her arms once more in voiceless supplication
towards the altar of the Infinite helpfulness.
But at that moment a little novice, whom Sister Dolorosa loved and whom
she had taught the music of the harp, came running into the church,
wringing her hands and crying. When she was half-way down the aisle, in
a voice that rang through the building, she called out:
"Oh, Mother, she is coming! Something has happened to her! Her veil is
gone!" and, turning again, she ran out of the church.
They were hurrying after her when a note of command, inarticulate but
imperious, from the Mother Superior arrested every foot and drew every
eye in that direction. Voice had failed her, but with a gesture full
of dignity and reproach she waved them back, and supporting her great
form between two of the nuns, she advanced slowly down the aisle of the
church and passed out by the front entrance. But they forgot to obey
her and followed; and when she descended the steps to the bottom and
made a sign that she would wait there, on the steps behind they stood
grouped and crowded back to the sacred doors.
Yes, she was coming--coming up the avenue of elms--coming slowly, as
though her strength were almost gone. As she passed under the trees on
one side of the avenue she touched their trunks one by one for support.
She walked with her eyes on the ground and with the abstraction of one
who has lost the purpose of walking. When she was perhaps half-way up
the avenue, as she paused by one of the trees and supported herself
against it, she raised her eyes and saw them all waiting to receive her
on the steps of the church. For a little while she stood and surveyed
the scene; the Mother Superior standing in front, her sinking form
supported between two Sisters, her hands clasping the crucifix to her
bosom; behind her the others, step above step, back to the doors; some
looking at her with frightened faces; others with their heads buried on
each other's shoulders; and hiding somewhere in the throng, the little
novice, only the sound of whose sobbing revealed her presence. Then she
took her hand from the tree, walked on quite steadily until she was
several yards away, and paused again.
She had torn off her veil and her head was bare and shining. She had
torn the sacred symbol from her bosom, and through the black rent they
could see the glistening whiteness of her naked breast. Comprehending
them in one glance, as though she wished them all to listen, she looked
into the face of the Mother Superior, and began to speak in a voice
utterly forlorn, as of one who has passed the limits of suffering.
"Mother!--"
"Mother!--"
She passed one hand slowly across her forehead, to brush away some
cloud from her brain, and for the third time she began to speak:
"Mother!--"
Then she paused, pressed both palms quickly to her temples, and turned
her eyes in bewildered appeal towards the Mother Superior. But she
did not fall. With a cry that might have come from the heart of the
boundless pity the Mother Superior broke away from the restraining arms
of the nuns and rushed forward and caught her to her bosom.