It being Saturday, there was choir practice at St. Joseph's, and when
Evelyn returned her father had left, and she breakfasted alone. After
breakfast she sat absorbed in the mysteries of the Sacrament she had
received. But in the middle of her exaltation doubt intervened, and
Owen's arguments flashed through her mind. She strove to banish them; it
was terrible that she should think such things over again, and on the
morning of her Communion. Her spiritual joy was blighted; she could only
hope that these dreadful thoughts were temptations of the devil, and
that she was in no wise responsible. She stood in the middle of the
room, asking herself if she had not in some slight measure yielded to
them. No direct answer came to her question, but the words, "When I'm a
bad woman I believe, when I'm a good woman I doubt," sounded clear and
distinct in her brain, and she remained thinking a long while.
Her father came in after lunch. And while she spoke about his trebles
and his altos, she was thinking how she should tell him that she was
going away that afternoon.
"You're very silent."
"I was at Holy Communion this morning."
"This morning? I thought you were going to Communion on Sunday?"
"Yes, so I was, but I received a letter from Owen Asher saying he
intended to see me. I took it to Monsignor; he said it was necessary
that I should not see Owen, and he advised me to go and stay with the
Sisters at Wimbledon. That is why I went to Communion this morning; I
wanted Monsignor to give me Communion. Father, I cannot remain here, I
should be sure to meet him."
"He will not come here."
"No, but he'll be waiting in the street."
"When are you going?"
"This afternoon," she answered, and handed him Owen's letter. He glanced
at it, and said--
"He seems very fond of you."
The answer shocked her, and nothing more was said on the subject. A
little later she asked him about the trains. She did not know how she
was to get from Dulwich to Wimbledon. Neither were very apt in looking
out the trains, and eventually it was Agnes who discovered the changes
that would have to be made. She would have to go first to Victoria, and
then she would have to drive from Victoria to Waterloo, and this seemed
so complicated and roundabout that she decided to drive all the way in a
hansom. Dulwich and Wimbledon could not be more than ten miles apart.
"I must go upstairs now, father, and pack my things."
Her father followed her and stood by, while she hesitated what she
should take. Smiling, she rejected a tea-gown as unsuitable for convent
wear, and put in a black lace scarf which she thought would be useful
for wearing in church; it would look better in the convent chapel than a
hat. Instead of a flowered silk she chose a grey alpaca. Then she
remembered that she must take some books with her. It would be useless
to bring pious books with her, she would find plenty of those in the
convent.
"Have you any books, father? I must have something to read."
"There are a few books downstairs; you know them all."
"You don't read much, father?"
"Not much, except music. But Ulick brings books here, you may find
something among them."
She returned with Berlioz's _Memoirs_, Pater's _Imaginary Portraits_,
and Blake's _Songs of Innocence and Experience_.
"I suppose these books belong to Ulick. I don't know if I ought to take
them."
"I cannot advise you; you must do as you like. I suppose you'll bring
them back?"
"Oh, yes, of course I shall bring them back."
"Evelyn, dear, is it quite essential that you should go?"
"Yes, father, yes, it is quite; but I don't know how I am to get away."
"How you're to get away! What do you mean?"
"Well," she answered, laughing, "you see in his letter he says he's
coming to watch me. Father, I can see that you pity him; you're sorry
for him, aren't you?"
"Well, Evelyn, he offered to marry you, he made you a great singer, and
you say he'd do anything for you. I suppose I am sorry for him."
They stood looking out of the window.
"You know I'd like to stop with you; it can't be helped; but I shall
come back."
"Do you think you'll come back?"
"Of course I shall come back. Where should I go if I did not come back?"
At that moment Agnes drove up in a hansom; she ran up the little garden,
and carried out Evelyn's bag and placed it in the hansom.
"I must go now, father; good-bye, darling. I shan't be away more than
seven or eight days."
A moment after her dear father was behind her, and she was alone in the
hansom, driving towards the convent. About her were villas engarlanded
with reddening creeper. On one lawn a family had assembled under the
shade of a dwarf cedar, and miles of this kind of landscape lay before
her. It seemed to her like painted paper, an illusion that might pass
away at any moment. Her truth was no longer in the external world, but
in her own soul. Her soul was making for a goal which she could not
discern. She was leaving a life of wealth and fame and love for a life
of poverty, chastity and obscurity. All the joy and emulation of the
stage she was relinquishing for a dull, narrow, bare life at Dulwich,
giving singing lessons and saying prayers at St. Joseph's. Yet there was
no question which she would choose, and she marvelled at the strangeness
of her choice.
The road lay through fields and past farmhouses, but the suburban street
was never quite lost sight of. Its blue roofs and cheap porticos
appeared unexpectedly at the end of an otherwise romantic prospect, and
so on and so on, until the driver let his horse walk up Wimbledon hill.
When they reached the top she craned her neck, and was in time to catch
a glimpse of the windmill far away to the right. The inn was in front of
her, the end of a long point of houses stretching into the common, and
the hansom rolled easily on the wide, curving roads. She anticipated the
choked gardens, the decaying pear trees, the gold crowns of sunflowers;
and a moment after the hansom passed these things and she saw the old
green door, and heard the jangling peal. The eyes of the lay sister
looked through the barred loop-hole.
"How do you do, sister? I suppose you expected me?"