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--
"O 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.