IX

The cell was a large, light, airy room on the first-floor of the big

two-storied Convent building that stood in its spacious, tree-shaded,

high-fenced gardens beyond the Hospital at the north end of the town. Tall

stained-wood presses full of papers and account-files covered the wall

upon one side. There also stood a great iron safe, with heavy ledgers

piled upon it. Upon the other three sides of the room were bookshelves,

doubly and trebly laden, with Latin tomes of the Fathers of the Church,

and the works and writings of modern theologians, many of them categorised

upon the "Index Expurgatorius." Rows there were of English, French,

German, Italian, and Spanish classical authors, and many volumes of

recently-published scientific works. It might have been the room of a

business man who was at the same time a priest and a scholar. There were

roller maps upon the walls, and two or three engravings, Bougereau's

"Virgin of Consolation," the "Madonna dei Ansidei" of Raffaelle, and a

"Crucifixion" over the chimneypiece, which had three little statuettes in

tinted alabaster--a St. Ignatius at one end, a St. Anthony of Padua at the

other; in the middle, the Virgin bearing the Child.

The Mother-Superior sat writing at a bare solid deal table of the kitchen

kind, with stained legs to add to its ugliness, and stained black-knobbed

fronts to the drawers in it. Her pen flew over the paper.

Seated though she was, you could see her to be of noble figure, tall and

finely proportioned. The habit of the nun does not hide everything that

makes for beauty and for grace. The pure outlines of the small,

perfectly-shaped head showed through the thin black veil that fell over

the white starched coif. The small, high-instepped foot could not be

hidden in walking; the make of the thick shoe might not disguise its form.

The delicate whiteness and smooth, supple beauty of her hands, larger than

the hands of ordinary women, their owner being of more heroic build, as of

ampler mind and keener intellect, betrayed her to be a woman not yet old,

though there were some deep lines and many fine ones on the attentive

face that bent over the large square sheet of paper.

It was a curious face; its olive skin bleached to dull whiteness, its

expression stern almost to severity. I have heard it likened to a

Westmoreland hill-landscape. Lonely tarns lie under the black brows of the

precipice; one feels chilly, and a little afraid. But the sun shines out

suddenly from behind concealing mists, and everything is transformed to

loveliness. I can in no other words describe the change wrought in her by

her rare, sudden, illuminating smile. Her voice was the softest and the

clearest I ever heard, a sigh made most audible speech; but in her just

anger, only turned to wrath by the baser faults, the fouler vices, it

could roll in organ-tones of thunder, or ring like a silver trumpet. And

her eye made the lightning for such thunder, and the sword-thrust that

followed the clarion-note of war.

She could have ruled an empire or a court, this woman who managed the

thronged, buzzing Convent with the lifting of her finger, with the softest

tone of her soft West of Ireland voice, devoid of all trace of the

unbeautiful brogue, cultured, elegant, refined. As I have said, the

lessons that she taught bore great fruit during that red time of war that

was coming, and will bear greater fruit hereafter.

A little is known to me of the personal history of Lady Bridget-Mary

Bawne--in religion known as Mother Mary of Bethlehem--that may be here set

down. Some twenty-three years previously that devout Irish Catholic

nobleman, the Right Honourable James Dominic Bawne, tenth Earl of

Castleclare, Baron Kilhail, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and D.L. for

West Connemara, not contented with the possession of three very tall, very

handsome, very popular daughters--the Right Honourable Ladies

Bridget-Mary, Alyse, and Alethea Bawne--consulted his favourite spiritual

director, and, as advised, offered his thin white hand and piously

regulated affections to Miss Nancy McIleevy, niece and heiress of McIleevy

of McIleevystown, the eminent County Down brewer, so celebrated for his

old Irish ales and nourishing bottled porter.

This lady, being sufficiently youthful, of good education and manners,

and of like faith with her elderly wooer, undertook, in return for an

ancient name and the title of Countess of Castleclare, to find the widower

in conjugal affection for the rest of his mortified life, and to do her

best to supply him with the grievously-needed heir. There was no wicked

fairy at Lord Castleclare's wedding, distinguished by the black-browed

beauty of the three bridesmaids, his daughters; and two years later saw

the beacons at the entrance of Ballybawne Harbour, on the West Connemara

coast, illuminated by the Castleclare tenants in honour of the arrival of

the desired heir, upon whom before his birth so much wealth had been

expended by Lord Castleclare in pilgrimages, donations, foundations, and

endowments that, some months after it, his lordship conveyed to his three

daughters that, in the interests of the Viscount, to whose swollen gums a

gold-set pebble enclosing a pious relic of an early Christian martyr was

at that moment affording miraculous relief, he, their father, would be

obliged by their providing themselves as soon as possible with husbands of

suitable rank, corresponding religion, and sufficient means to dispense

with the customary marriage portion.

Lady Alyse saw the justice of her father's views, and married the Duke of

Broads, an English Catholic peer; her younger sister, Alethea, went

obediently to the altar with the aged and enormously wealthy Prince de

Dignmont-Veziers. Lady Bridget-Mary Bawne, eldest and handsomest of the

three, pleaded--if a creature so stormy and imperious could be said to

plead--a previous engagement to an Ineligible.

"We have all heard of Captain Mildare of the Grey Hussars, my dear child,"

said Lord Castleclare, going to the door to make sure that those shrieks

that had proceeded from the Viscount's sumptuous suite of apartments,

situated at the top of the staircase rising at the end of the corridor

leading from his father's library, were stilled at the maternal fountain.

Finding that it was so, he ambled back to the centre of the worn Bokhara

rug that had been under the _prie-Dieu_ in the oratory of James II. at

Dublin Castle, and resumed. "We have all heard of Captain Mildare. At the

taking of Ali Musjid--arah!--at Futtehabad, with Gough--arah!--and at

Ahmed Khel, where Stewart cut up the Afghans so tremendously, Mildare

earned great distinction as well as the Victoria Cross, which I am

delighted to see, in glancing through the _Army and Navy Gazette_, Her

Majesty has been pleased to confer upon him. As a gentleman and a soldier

he presents all that is desirable; as a member of an old Catholic family,

he certainly commands my suffrages. But as the husband of my eldest

daughter I cannot look upon a younger son with--arah!--toleration.

Honourable reputation is much, bravery is much, but my son-in-law must

possess--arah!--other--other qualifications." The old gentleman stuttered

pitiably.

"_One_ other qualification, you mean, father, if that term can be given to

the possession of a certain amount of money," said Lady Bridget-Mary,

standing very straight and looking very proudly at her father. "Will you

object to telling me plainly for how much you would be content to sell

your stock, with goodwill?"

Lord Castleclare was a thin, courtly old gentleman, who had conquered, he

humbly trusted, all his passions, except the passion for early Catholic

Theological Fathers and the passion for Spanish snuff. But he was stung by

the irony. He spilt quite a quantity of choice mixture over the long,

ivory-yellow nail of his lean, delicate thumb as he looked consciously

aside from the great scornful grey eyes that judged and questioned and

condemned him as a mercenary old gentleman. And he caught himself wishing

that this fine fiery creature had been born a boy. He looked back again at

his eldest daughter. Her white arms were folded upon her bosom, her

pearl-coloured silk evening gown was swept aside from the fire, to whose

warmth she held an arched and exquisite foot. Her noble head, with its

rich coronet of silken black coils, was bent; her broad brows had ceased

to be stormy. With a half-dreamy smile upon her beautiful firm mouth, she

was looking at a green flashing ring she wore on the third finger of her

left hand. And the sight of her so sent a sudden pang of remembrance

leaping through the old man's heart. He forgot his spoiled pinch of snuff,

and stepped over to her, and took the hand, and looked at the emerald ring

with her in silence.

"My dear daughter," he said, more simply and more sweetly than Lady

Bridget-Mary had ever heard him speak before, "I think you love this brave

gentleman sincerely?"

His daughter's large, beautifully-shaped hand closed strongly over the old

ivory fingers. The great brilliant dark grey eyes looked at him through a

sudden mist of tears, though she lifted her head and held it high. She

said in a low, clear voice:

"Father, you remember how my mother loved you? And Richard is as dear to

me as you were to her. I want words when it comes to speaking of so great

a thing as the love I feel for him. But it is my life.... I seem to

breathe with his breath, and think his thoughts, and speak with his voice,

since we found out our secret, and we are each other's for Time and for

Eternity." Then she added, with a lovely smile that had a touch of humour

in it: "And he will be quite content to take me with only my share of

mother's money."

"Tschah!" said the old father. "Nonsense! Of course, St. Barre will be

delighted to provide for you. Excuse me ... I must go."

St. Barre, in the Castleclare nursery, had set up another squeal.

Thenceforwards the course of true love might have been expected to run

smoothly for Lady Bridget-Mary and her gallant lover. But she had

reckoned, not without her host, but without her Grey Hussar. In love there

is always one who loves the more, and Lady Bridget-Mary, that fine,

enthusiastic, tempestuous creature, was far from realising that she was

less to her Richard than he was to her. The reason was not farther to seek

than a few doors off in London, when the Ladies Bawne occupied their

sombre old corner-house in Grosvenor Square. It was Lady Bridget-Mary's

dearest Lucy and bosom-friend, who had married that handsome,

grey-moustached martinet, Richard's Colonel. In Lady Lucy Hawting's

drawing-room Lord Castleclare's elder daughter had met Captain Mildare,

the hero of Futtehabad and Ahmed Khel. The Colonel's wife was a pretty,

delicate, graceful creature, some three years older than her black-browed

handsome friend, and much more learned, as, of course, befitted a married

woman, in the ways of the world. And Lady Lucy saw the budding of young

passion in the heart of her junior ... and it occurred to her that it

would furnish a very excellent excuse for the constant presence of Captain

Mildare, if ...! the sweetest and most limpid women have their turbid

depths, their muddy secrets--and she had confided everything to dearest

Bridget-Mary, except the one thing that mattered!

Well! We all know for what reason Le Roi Soleil addressed himself to the

wooing of La Valliere. Louis fell genuinely in love with the decoy, not

quite so Richard. But sometimes, when those proud lips meekly gave back

his kisses, and that lofty beauty humbled itself to obey his will, he

almost wished that he had never met the other. A day came when the secret

orchard he had joyed in with that other was threaded with a golden clue,

and the hidden bower unveiled to the cold-eyed staring day.

Captain Mildare and Lady Lucy Hawting went away together, and from Paris

Richard wrote and broke to the girl who loved him, and had been his

betrothed wife, the common, vulgar, horrible little truth. Bridget-Mary

had been deceived by both of them from the very beginning. Estimate the

numbing, overwhelming weight of that blow, delivered by a hand so

worshipped, upon so proud a heart. Those who saw her, and should have

honoured her great grief with decent reticence, say that she was mad for a

while; that she grovelled on the earth in her abandonment, calling upon

God and man to be merciful and kill her. Pass over this. I cannot bear to

think that the mere love of a Richard Mildare should bring that lofty head

so low.

While the scandal lived in the mouths of Society, Lady Bridget-Mary Bawne

remained unseen. She was pitied--oh, burning, intolerable shame! She was

commiserated as a catspaw, and sneered at as a dupe. Her sisters and her

stepmother, her father and her seven aunts, her relatives, innumerable as

stars in the Milky Way, found infinite relish in the comfortable

conviction that every one of them had said from the very outset that

Bridget-Mary would regret the step she had taken in engaging herself to

that Captain Mildare. Sharp claws of steel were added to her scourge of

humiliation by a thousand petty liberties taken with this, her great,

sacred sorrow, as by letters of sympathy from friends, who wrote as if she

had suffered the loss of a pet hunter, or a prize Persian cat.

A suitor ventured to propose for that white rejected hand, addressing

himself with stammering diffidence to Lord Castleclare. A young man, the

son of an industrious father who had consolidated the sweat of his brow

into three millions and a Peerage, hideously conscious of the raw newness

of his title, painfully burdened with the bosom-weight of a genuine, if

incoherent love, he seemed to Lady Bridget-Mary's family tolerable, almost

desirable, nearly quite the thing....

"He has boiled jam into sweetness for the whole civilised world," said the

most influential and awful of Lord Castleclare's seven sisters, a

Dowager-Duchess who was Lady-in-Waiting, and exhaled the choicest essence

of the Middle Victorian era. She still adhered to the mushroom-shaped

straw hats of her youth, trimmed with black velvet rosettes, in the centre

of each of which reposed a cut jet button. She went always voluminously

clad in black or shot-silk gowns, their skirts so swelled out by a

multiplicity of starched cambric petticoats, adorned with tambour-work,

that she was credited with the existence of a crinoline. She had, in

marrying her now defunct Scots Duke, embraced Presbyterianism, and though

her brother believed her, as far as the next world was concerned, to be

lost beyond redemption, he entertained for her judgment in the matters of

this planet a great esteem.

"He has boiled jam enough to spread over the surface of the civilised

globe, and now proposes to hive its concentrated extract for the benefit

of our dearest girl, in the shape of a settlement that a Princess of the

Blood might envy. I call the whole thing pretty," pronounced the Dowager,

"almost romantic, or it might be made to sound so if a person of superior

intelligence and tact would undertake to plead for the young man. His

terrible title has quite escaped me. Lord Plumbanks? Thank you! It might

have been Strawberrybeds, and that would have increased our difficulty. No

time should be lost. Therefore, as you, dear Castleclare, with your wife

and the boy, who, I am gratified to hear, has cut another, are going to

Rome for Holy Week, perhaps you would wish me in your absence to break the

ice with Bridget-Mary?"

Lord Castleclare's long, solemn face and arched, lugubrious eyebrows bore

no little resemblance to the well-known portrait of the conscientious but

unlucky Stuart in whose service his ancestor had shed blood and money,

receiving in lieu of both, a great many Royal promises, the Eastern carpet

that had belonged to the monarch's Irish oratory, and the fine sard

intaglio, brilliant-set, and representing a Calvary, that loyal servant's

descendant wore upon his thin ivory middle finger. He twiddled the ring

nervously as he said:

"She has gone into Lenten Retreat at a Convent in Kensington. I--arah!--I

do not think it would be advisable to disturb salutary and seasonable

meditations with--arah!--worldly matters at this present moment."

"Fiddle-faddle!" said the Dowager-Duchess sharply.

Lord Castleclare lifted his melancholy arched eyebrows.

"'Fiddle-faddle,' my dear Constantia?"

"You have the expression!" said she. "Young women of Bridget-Mary's age

and temperament will think of marriage in convents as much as outside

them. Further, I dread delay, entertaining as I do the very certain

conviction that this weak-minded man who has thrown your daughter over

will be back, begging Bridget-Mary to forgive him and reinstate him in the

possession of her affections before another two months are over our heads.

That little cat-eyed, squirrel-haired woman he has run away with, and

against whom I have warned our poor dear girl times out of number"--she

really believed this--"is the sort of pussy, purring creature to make a

man feel her claws, once she has got him. Therefore, although my family

may not thank me for it, I shall continue to repeat, 'No time is to be

lost!' Still, in deference to your religious prejudices, and although I

never heard that the Catholic Church prohibited jam as an article of

Lenten diet, we will defer from offering Bridget-Mary the pot until

Easter."

But Easter brought the news that Lady Bridget-Mary had decided upon taking

the veil, and begged her father not to oppose her wishes. The

Dowager-Duchess rushed to the Kensington Convent.... All the little

straw-mats on the slippery floor of the parlour were swept like chaff

before the hurricane of her advancing petticoats as she bore down upon the

most disappointing, erratic, and self-willed niece that ever brought the

grey hairs of a solicitous and devoted aunt in sorrow to the grave,

demanding in Heaven's name what Bridget-Mary meant by this maniacal

decision? Then she drew back, for at first she hardly credited that this

tall, pale, quiet woman in the plain, close-fitting, black woollen gown

could be Bridget-Mary at all. Realising that it could be nobody else, she

began to cry quite hysterically, subsiding upon a Berlin woolwork covered

sofa, while her niece rang the bell for that customary Convent

restorative, a teaspoonful of essence of orange-flower in a glass of

water, and returning to the side of her agitated relative, took her hand,

encased in a tight one-button puce glove, saying:

"Dear Aunt Constantia, what is the use of crying? I have done with it for

good."

"You are so dreadfully changed and so awfully composed, and I always was

sensitive. And, besides, to find you like this when I expected you to beat

your head upon the floor--or was it against the wall, they said?--and pray

to be put out of your misery by poison, or revolver, or knife, as though

anybody would be wicked enough to do it ..."

A faint stain of colour crept into Lady Bridget-Mary's white cheeks.

"All that is over, Aunt Constantia. Forget it, as I have done, and drink a

little of this. The Sisters believe it to be calming to the nerves."

"To naturally calm nerves, I suppose." The Dowager accepted the tumbler.

"What a nice, thick, old-fashioned glass!" She sipped. "You hear how my

teeth are chattering against the rim. That is because I have flown here in

such a hurry of agitation upon hearing from your father that you have

decided to enter the Novitiate at once."

"It is true," said Lady Bridget-Mary, standing very tall and dark and

straight against the background of the parlour window, that was filled in

with ground-glass, and veiled with snowy curtains of starched

thread-lace.

"True! When not ten months ago you declared to me that you would not be a

nun for all the world.... You begged me to befriend you in the matter of

Captain Mildare. I undertook, alas! that office...."

The Dowager-Duchess blew her nose.

"A little more of the orange-flower water, dear aunt?"

"'Dear aunt,' when you are trampling upon my very heart-strings! And let

me tell you, Bridget-Mary, you have always been my favourite niece. '_For

all the world,_' you said with your own lips, '_I would not be a nun!_'

Three millions will buy, if not the world, at least a good slice of it....

Figuratively, I offer them to you in this outstretched hand!" The Dowager

extended a puce kid glove. "The husband who goes with them is a good

creature. I have seen and spoken with him, and the dear Queen regards me

as a judge of men. 'Consie,' she has said, 'you have perception....' What

my Sovereign credits may not my niece believe?"

Lady Bridget-Mary's black brows were stern over the great joyless eyes

that looked out of their sculptured caves upon the world she had bidden

good-bye to. But the fine lines of humour about the wings of the sensitive

nostrils and the corners of the large finely-modelled mouth quivered a

little.

"Drink a little more orange-flower water, dear, and never tell me who the

man is. I do not wish to hear. I decline to hear."

The Dowager-Duchess lost her temper.

"That is because you know already, and despise money that is made of jam.

Yet coal and beer are swallowed with avidity by young women who have not

forfeited the right to be fastidious. That is the last thing I wished to

say, but you have wrung it from me. Have you no pride? Do you want Society

to say that you have embraced the profession of a Religious, and intend

henceforth to employ your talents in teaching sniffy-nosed schoolgirls

Greek and Algebra and Mathematics, because this Mildare has jilted you?

Again, have you no pride?" She agitated the Britannia-metal teaspoon

furiously in the empty tumbler.

Lady Bridget-Mary took the tumbler away. Why should the humble property

of the Sisters be broken because this kind, fussy woman chose to upbraid?

"You ask, Have I no pride?" she said. "Why should I have pride when Our

Lord is so humble that He does not disdain to take for His bride the woman

Richard Mildare has rejected?"

"You are incorrigible, dearest," said the sobbing Dowager-Duchess, as she

kissed her, "and Castleclare must use all his influence with the Holy

Father to induce the Comtesse de Lutetia to give you the veil. All of you

think I am damned, and possibly I may be, but if so I shall be afforded an

opportunity (which will not be mine in this life) of giving Captain

Mildare a piece of my mind!"

So the Dowager-Duchess melted out of the story, and Lady Bridget-Mary

Bawne became a nun.

X

This is what the Mother-Superior wrote to her kinswoman, with her mobile,

eloquent lips folded closely together as she thought, and her grave eyes

following the swift journey of the pen as it formed the sentences:

_"Now let me speak to you of Lynette Mildare. I have never

thought it necessary to make the slightest disguise of my

great partiality for this, the dearest of all the many

children given me by Our Lord since I resigned my crown of

earthly motherhood to Him."_

She stopped, remembering what another great lady, also a relative of hers,

had remarked when it was first made public that she intended to enter the

Novitiate:

"Indeed! It would seem, then, that you are devoid of ambition, my dear,

unlike the other people of your house."

She had said, paraphrasing a retort previously made:

"Does it strike you as lack of ambition that one of our family should

prefer Christ before any earthly spouse?"

What a base utterance that had seemed to her afterwards! How devoid of the

true spirit of the religious, how hateful, petty, profane! But the great

lady had been greatly struck by it, and had gone about quoting the words

everywhere. She, who had spoken them, repented them with tears, and set

the memory of them between her and ill-considered, worldly speech, for

ever.

She wrote on now:

_"She has no vocation for the life of a religious. I doubt

her being happy or successful as a teacher here, were I

removed from my post by supreme earthly authority, or by

death, either contingency being the expression of the Will

of God. She has a reserved, sensitive nature, quick to feel,

and eager to hide what she feels, indifferent to praise or

popularity among the many, anxiously desirous to please,

passionately devoted where she gives her love...."_

The firm mouth quivered, and a mist stole before her eyes. Being human,

she took the handkerchief that lay amongst her papers and wiped the

crowding tears away, and went on:

_"I could wish, in anticipation of either eventuality named,

that provision might now be made for her. Those who love

me--yourself I know to be among the number--will not, I feel

assured, be indifferent to my wish that she should be placed

beyond the reach of want."_

She wrote on, knowing that the implied wish would be observed as a

command:

_"We have never been able to trace any persons who might

have been her parents--we have never even known her real

name.--Those among whom her childhood was spent called her

by none. As you know, I gave her in Holy Baptism one that

was our dear dead mother's, together with the surname of a

lost friend. She is, and must be always, known as Lynette

Mildare."_

Her eyes were tearless, and her hand quite steady as she continued:

_"You must not be at all alarmed or shaken by this letter. I

am perfectly well in health, be quite assured; I trust I may

be spared to carry on my work here for many long years to

come. But in case it should be otherwise, I write thus:_

_"The country is greatly disturbed, in spite of the

reassuring reports that have been disseminated by the Home

Authorities. I do not, and cannot, imagine what the official

view may be in London at this moment, but it is certain that

the Transvaal and Free State are preparing for war. Every

hour the enmity between the Boers and the English deepens in

intensity. It will be to many minds a relief when the storm

bursts. The War Office may think meanly of the Africanised

Dutchman as a fighting force, but the opinion of every loyal

Briton in this country is that he is not a foe to be

despised, and that he will shed the last drop of his own

blood and his children's for the sake of his independence._

_"Above the petty interests of greedy capitalists looms the

wider question: Shall the Briton or the Dutchman rule in

South Africa? Here in this insignificant frontier town we

wait the sounding of the tocsin. The Orange Free State has

openly allied itself with the Transvaal Government. There

are said to be several commandos in laager on the Border. A

public meeting of citizens of this town has been held, at

which a vote of 'No confidence' in the Dutch Ministers has

been passed, and an appeal for help has been made to the

Government at Cape Town. It is not yet publicly known what

the response has been, if there is any. I think it ominous

that all of our Dutch pupils, save one, should have been

hurriedly sent for by their parents before the ending of the

term. Knowing my responsibility, I am sending all home,

except the few who happen to be resident in this town, and

the school will remain closed, at all events, until the

outlook assumes a less threatening aspect. It is a relief to

many that a Military Commandant has been appointed by the

authorities at Cape Town, and that he arrived here a week

ago. He is reported to be an officer of energy and decision,

and as he has already set the troops under his command to

work at putting the town into a condition of defence, and is

organising the civil male population into a regiment of

armed----"_

There was a light knock at the door. She responded with the permission to

enter, and a tall, slight girl, with red-brown hair, came in and closed

the door, dropping her little curtsy to the Mother-Superior. She wore the

plain black alpaca uniform of the Convent, with the ribbon of the Headship

of the Red Class, to be resigned when she should become a pupil-teacher

at the opening of the next term; and the rare and beautiful smile broke

over the face of the elder woman as the younger came to her side.

"Are you busy, Reverend Mother? Do you want me to go away?"

"I shall have finished in another five minutes, and then there will be no

more letters to write, my child. Sit where you choose; take a book, and be

quiet; I shall not keep you waiting long."

The words were few; the Mother-Superior's manner a little curt in speaking

them. But where Lynette chose to sit was on the cheap drugget that covered

the beeswaxed boards, with her squirrel-coloured hair and soft cheek

pressed against the black serge habit.

The Mother-Superior wrote on, apparently absorbed, and with knitted brows

of attention, but her large, white, beautiful left hand dropped half

unconsciously to the silken hair and the velvet cheek, and stayed there.

There is a type of woman the lightest touch of whose hand is subtler and

more sweet than the most honeyed kisses of others. And the Mother-Superior

was not liberal of caresses. When Lynette turned her lips to the hand, the

face that bent over the paper remained as stern and as absorbed as ever.

She went on writing, directed, closed, and stamped her letter, and set it

aside under a pebble of white quartz, lined and streaked with the faint

silvery green of gold.

"Now, my child?"

The girl said, flushing scarlet:

"Reverend Mother, I have told the Red Class the truth about me!"

The Mother-Superior started; dismay was in her face.

"Why, child?"

"I--I mean"--the scarlet flush gave place to paleness--"that I have no

name and no family, and no friends except you, dearest, and the Sisters.

That you found me, and took me in, and have kept me out of charity."

"Was it necessary to have told--anything whatever?"

"I think so, Mother, and I am glad now that I have done it. There will be

no need for deception any more."

"My daughter, there has never been the slightest deception of any kind

whatsoever upon your part, or the part of anyone else who knew. No

interests suffered by your keeping your own secret. Who first solicited

your confidence in this matter?"

"Greta Du Taine."

"Greta Du Taine." Very cold was the tone of the Mother-Superior. "May I

ask how she received the information she had the bad taste to seek?"

"Mother--she took it--not quite as I expected."

"Yet she and you have always been friends, my child."

Lynette rose up upon her knees. The long arm of the Mother-Superior went

round the slight figure that leaned against her, and in the sudden gesture

was a passion of protecting motherhood.

"Mother, she does not wish to be my friend any longer. She was quite

horrified to remember that she had invited me to stay with her at the Du

Taine place near Johannesburg. But she said that if I liked she would not

tell the class."

"I have no fear of the rest of the class. They have honour, and good

feeling, and warm hearts. What was your reply to Greta's obliging

proposition?"

"I told her that the sooner everybody knew the better; and I went out of

the room, and came to you--as I always do--as I always have done, ever

since----"

Her voice broke in the first sob.

"_Ah!_" cried the voice of the mother-heart she crept to, as the long arms

in the loose black serge sleeves went out and folded her close, "_ah, if I

might be always here for you to run to! But God knows best!_"

She said aloud, gently putting the girl away:

"Well, the ordeal is over, and will not have to be gone through again. And

for the future, bear in mind that every human being has a right to regard

his own business--or hers--as private, and to exclude the curious from

affairs which do not concern them." She reached out quick tender hands,

and framed the wistful, sensitive face in them, and added, in a lower

tone: "For a little told may beget in them the desire to know more. And

always remember this: that the only just claim to your perfect confidence

in all that concerns your past life, and I say _all_ with meaning"--the

girl's white eyelids fell under her earnest gaze, and the delicate lips

began to quiver--"will rest in the man--the honourable and brave and

worthy gentleman--who I pray may one day be your husband."

"No!" she cried out sharply as if in terror, and the slight figure was

shaken by a sudden spasm of trembling. "Oh, Mother, no! Never, never!"

With a gesture of infinite pity and tenderness the Mother drew her close,

and hid the shame-dyed face upon her bosom, and whispered, with her lips

upon the red-brown hair:

"My lamb, my dearest, my poor, poor child! It shall be never if you

choose, Lynette. But make no rash vows, no determinations that you think

irrevocable. Leave the future to God. Now dry these dear eyes, and put old

thoughts and memories of sorrow and of wrong most resolutely away from

you. Be happy, as Our Lord meant all innocent creatures of His to be. And

do not be tempted to magnify Greta's offence against friendship. She has

acted according to her lights, and if they are of the kind that shine in

marshy places, a better Light will shine upon her path one day. I know

that you have real affection for her ... though I must own I have always

wondered in what lay the secret of her popularity in the school?"

"She is so amusing--and so pretty, Mother."

"She is exquisitely pretty. And beauty is one of the most excellent among

all the gifts of God. Our sense of what is beautiful and the delight we

have in the perception of it must linger with us from those days when

Angels walked visibly on earth, and talked with the children of men. A

lovely soul in a lovely body, nothing can be more excellent, but such a

body does not always cage what St. Columb called 'the bird of beauty.' And

we must not be swayed or led by outward and perishable things, that are

illusions, and deceits, and snares."

The Mother-Superior reached out a long arm, and took a solid

leather-bound, red-edged volume from the table, and opened it at a page

marked by a flamingo's feather, whose delicate pink faded at the tip into

rosy-white.

"I was reading this a little while before you came in. If you were not a

little dunce at Greek, you would be able to construe the classic author

for yourself."

"But I am a dunce, dear, and so I leave you to read him to me," said

Lynette triumphantly.

"Well, balance this heavy book, and listen."

She read:

_"'When first the Father of the Immortals fashioned with his

divine hands the human shape:_

_"'An image first he made of red clay from Ida, tempered

with pure water from the stream of Xanthos, and wine from

the golden kylix borne by beautiful Ganymede, and it was

godlike to look upon as a thing fashioned by the hands of

the god. But the clay was not tempered sufficiently and

warped in the drying. Then Zeus Pater fashioned another

shape with more cunning, and this was tempered well and

warped not. And he bent down to breathe between its lips the

living soul. But as he stooped, Hephaistos, jealous of the

divine gift about to be conferred upon the mortal race, sent

from his forges smoke and vapour, which obscured the vision

of the Almighty Workman. So that the imperfect image

received that which was meant for the perfect one._

_"'And Zeus Pater, being angered, said: "See what thy malice

has wrought. Behold, a beautiful soul has been set in a body

unbeauteous and through thine act, and god though I be, I

cannot take back the gift that I have given." Then into the

other image of Man the divine maker breathed a soul. But

Zeus being wearied with his labours, and angered by the

craft of Hephaistos, it was less pure than the first. And so

two men came into being._

_"'And he whose body had been fashioned perfectly and

without flaw by the hands of the divine craftsman, walked

the earth with gracious mien. Fair-eyed was he, with locks

like clustering vine-tendrils, and cheeks rosy as the apples

of Love; but the soul of this man was cunning, and he

rejoiced in evils and cruelties, and deceits and mockeries

were upon his lips._

_"'And he whose image had warped in the drying was

unbeautiful in body and swart to look upon, as though

blackened by the forge-fires of Hephaistos, but he dealt

uprightly and hated evil, and on his lips there was no

guile, but faithfulness and truth._

_"'And he who was imperfect in body was yet fairer in the

eyes of Zeus Pater than his brother; because there dwelt

within him a beauteous soul.'"_

"And yet, Mother, if your beautiful soul had not been given beautiful

windows to look out at, and a beautiful mouth to kiss me or scold me with,

and beautiful hands to hold, it would have been a beastly shame!"

Is there a woman living who can resist such sweet daughterly flatteries?

This was very much a woman, and very much a mother, if very much a nun.

She kissed the mouth distilling such dear honey.

"This, not for the compliment, but because it is seven years to-day since

I found you, lying like some poor little strayed lamb on the veld, under

the burning sun."

"That was my real birthday, dearest, dearest...."

The girl pressed closer to her with dumb, vehement affection, as though

she would have grown to the bosom that had been her shield since then.

"On that day a little later, when I looked down and you looked up with big

eyes that begged for love, I knew that we had found each other. And we

have never lost each other since, I think?"

She smiled radiantly into the loving eyes.

"Never, my Mother. But if we did ... if we are ever to be estranged or

parted, it would be better ... oh! it would be better if you had passed by

in the waggon, and left me lying, and the aasvogels and the wild-dogs had

done the rest."

The Mother-Superior said, loosening the clinging arms, and speaking

sternly:

"Never, my daughter. You do gravely wrong to say so. Holy Baptism has been

yours, and Confirmation, and you have shared with His Faithful in the Body

of Christ.... Never let me hear you say that again!"

"Mother, I promise you, you never shall. But I had a dream last night that

was most vivid and strange and awful. It has haunted me ever since."

The Mother-Superior started, for she also had had a strange dream. Of that

vision had been born the written letter that now lay under the quartz

paper-weight--the letter that was to be sent, with others, by the next

English mail that should go out from Gueldersdorp, which said mail, being

intercepted by the Boers, was not for many months to reach its

destination. Supposing it had, this story need never have been written,

or else another would have been written in its place.

"Dear heart, I do not think that it is good or useful to brood upon such

things, or to relate them. And the Church forbids us to take account of

mere dreams, or in any way be swayed by them."

"That has always puzzled me. Because, you know ... supposing St. Joseph

had refused to credit a dream?..."

"There are dreams and dreams, my dear. And the heavenly visions of the

Saints are not to be confounded with our trivial subconscious memories.

Besides, sweets and fruits and pastry consumed in the seniors' dormitory

at night are not only an infringement of school rules, but an insult to

the digestion."

"Mother, how did you find out?" cried Lynette. There was something very

like a dimple in the bleached olive of the sweet worn cheek, lurking near

the edge of the close coif, and a twinkle of laughter in the deep grey

eyes that you thought were black until you had learned better.

"Well, though you may not find it easy to believe, I was once a girl at a

boarding-school, and I possibly remember how we usually celebrated a

breaking-up. There is the washing-bell; the pupils' tea-bell will ring

directly; you must hurry, or you will be late. One moment. What of this

unpleasant incident that took place during the afternoon walk yesterday?

Sister Cleophee and Sister Francis-Clare have not given me a very definite

account."

Lynette's fair skin flushed poppy-red.

"Mother, they hooted us on the road to the Recreation Ground."

Upon the great brows of the Mother-Superior sat the majesty of coming

tempest. Her white hand clenched, her tone was awfully stern:

"Who were 'they'?"

"Some drunken Boers and store-boys--at least, I think they were drunk--and

some Dutch railway-men. They cried shame on the Dutch girls for learning

from vile English idolaters. Then more men came up and joined them. They

threw stones, and threatened to duck Sister Cleophee and the two other

Sisters in the river. And they might have tried to, though we senior girls

got round them--at least, some of us did--and said they should try that

on us first----"

"That was courageous."

"We"--Lynette laughed a little nervously--"we were awfully frightened, all

the same."

"My dear, without fear there would have been no courage. Then I am told an

English officer interposed?"

"He was coming from the direction of the Hospital--a tall thin man in

Service khaki, with a riding-sjambok under his arm. But it would have been

as good as a sword if he had used it on those men. When he lifted it in

speaking to them they huddled together like sheep."

"You have no idea who he was, of course?"

"I do not know his name, but I heard one of the Boers say, 'That slim

duyvel with the sjambok is the new Military Commandant.' Another officer

was with him, much younger, taller, and with fair hair. He----"

"I hope I shall soon have an opportunity of thanking the Commandant

personally. As it is, I shall write. Now go, my dear."

Lynette took her familiar kiss, and dropped her formal curtsy, and went

with the red sunset touching her squirrel-coloured hair to flame. The

tea-bell rang as she shut the door behind her, and directly afterwards the

gate-bell clanged, sending an iron shout echoing through the whitewashed,

tile-paved passages, as if heralding a visitor who would not be denied. An

Irish novice who was on duty with the Sister attendant on the gate came

shortly afterwards to the room of the Mother-Superior, bringing a card on

a little wooden tray.

The Mother, the opening sentences of her note of thanks wet upon the sheet

before her, took the card, and knew that the letter need not be sent.

"This gentleman desired to see me?"

"He did so, Reverend Mother," whispered the timid Irish girl, who stood in

overwhelming awe of the majestic personality before her. "'Ask the

Mother-Superior will she consent to receive me?' says he. 'If she won't,

say that she must.' Says I: 'Sir, I'd not drame to presume give Herself a

message that bowld, but if you'll please to wait, I'll tell her what

you're after saying.'"

"Quite right, Katie. Now go and tell Sister Tobias to show him into the

parlour. I will be there directly."

Katie bobbed and vanished. When the Mother-Superior came into the parlour,

the visitor was standing near the fireplace, with his hands behind his

back. One wore a shabby dogskin riding-glove. The other, lean and brown

and knotty, held his riding-cane and the other glove, and a grey "smasher"

hat. He was looking up quietly and intently at a framed oil-painting that

hung above.

It represented a Syrian desert landscape, pale and ghastly, under the

light of a great white moon, with one lonely Figure standing like a

sentinel against a towering fang of rock. Lurking forms of fierce beasts

of prey were dimly to be distinguished amongst the shadows, and by the

side of the patient, lonely watcher brooded with outspread bat-wings, a

Shadow infinitely more terrible than any of these. It was rather a poor

copy of a modern picture, but the truth and force and inspiration of the

original had made of the copyist an artist for the time. The pure dignity

and lofty faith and patience of the Christ-eyes, haggard with bodily

sleeplessness and spiritual battle, the indomitable resistance breathing

in the lines of the Christ figure, wan and gaunt with physical famine as

with the nobler hunger of the soul, were rendered with fidelity and power.

The stranger's keen ear caught the Mother's long, swift step, and the

sweep of her woollen draperies over the shiny beeswaxed floor. He wheeled

sharply, brought his heels together, and bowed. She returned his

salutation with her inimitable dignity and grace. With his eyes on the

pure, still calmness of the face framed in the white close coif, the

Colonel commented mentally:

"What a noble-looking woman!"

The Mother-Superior thought, as her composed eyes swept over the tall,

spare, broad-shouldered figure and the strong, lean, tanned face, with its

alert, hazel eyes, nose of the falcon-beak order, and firm straight mouth

unconcealed by the short-clipped moustache:

"This is a brave man."