"I hope you will sleep well to-night," said Monsignor, kindly, noticing the signs of physical exhaustion in Evelyn as she stood mechanically drawing down her veil and putting on her gloves. "A good conscience is the best of all narcotics." Evelyn smiled through her tears, but could not trust herself to speak. "But I don't really like you living alone in Park Lane. It is too great a strain on your nerves. Could you not go to your father's for a time?"

"Yes, perhaps, I don't know. Dear father would like to have me."

He told her that the Mass he was to say to-morrow he would offer up for her; and as she drove home her joy grew more intense, and in a sort of spiritual intoxication she identified herself with the faith of her childhood. Life again presented possibilities of infinite perfection, and she was astonished that the difficulties which she had thought insuperable had been so easily overcome.

All that evening she thought of God and his sacraments, and remembering the moment when his grace had descended upon her and all had become clear, she perforce believed in a miracle—a miracle of grace had certainly happened.

She looked forward to the moment when her maid would leave the room, and she would throw herself on her knees and lose herself in prayer, as she had lost herself when she knelt beside Monsignor, and he absolved her from sin. But when the door closed she was incapable of prayer, she only desired sleep. Her whole mind seemed to have veered. She had exaggerated everything, conducted herself strangely, hysterically, and her prayers were repeated without ardour, almost indifferently.



CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

But the next day she could not account to herself for the extraordinary relief she had derived from her confession. For years she had battled with life alone, with no light to guide her, blown hither and thither by the gusts of her own emotions. But now she was at peace, she was reconciled to the Church; she would never be alone again. The struggle of her life still lay before her, and yet in a sense it was a thing of the past. She felt like a ship that has passed from the roar of the surf into the shelter of the embaying land, and in the distance stretched the long peacefulness of the winding harbour.

The solution of her monetary obligations to Sir Owen still perplexed her. She regretted not having laid the matter before Monsignor, and looked forward to doing so. She could hear his clear, explicit voice telling her what she must do, and guidance was such a sweet thing. He would say that to try to calculate hotel bills and railway fares was out of the question; but if she had said that the money Sir Owen had advanced her to pay Madame Savelli was to be considered as a debt, she must offer to return it. She knew that Owen would not accept it. It would be horrid of him if he did, but it would be still more horrid of her if she did not offer to return it.

She had not really begun to make money till the last few years, and as there had been no need for her to make money, she had sacrificed money to her pleasure and to Owen's. She had refused profitable engagements because Owen wanted her to go yachting, or because he wanted to go to Riversdale to hunt, or because she did not like the conductor. So it happened that she had very little money—about five thousand pounds, and her jewellery would fetch about half what was paid for it.

If she were to remain on the stage another year she could perhaps treble the amount, and to leave the stage she would have to provide herself with an adequate income. There was the tiara which the subscribers to the opera in New York had presented her with—that would fetch a good deal. It didn't become her, but it recalled a time of her life that was very dear to her, and she would be sorry to part with it. But from the point of view of ornament, she liked better the band of diamonds which a young Russian prince had sent to her anonymously. A few nights after, she had been introduced to him at a ball. His eyes went at once to the diamonds, a look of rapture had come into his face, and she had at once suspected he was the sender. They had danced many times, and retired for long, eager talks into distant corners. And the following evening she had found him waiting for her at the stage door. He had begged her to meet him in a park outside the city. He was attractive, young, and she was alone. Owen was away. She had thought that she liked him, and it was exciting to meet him in this distant park, their carriages waiting for them below the hill. She could still see the grey, lowering sky and the trees hanging in green masses; she had thought all the time it was going to rain. She remembered his pale, interesting face and his eager, insinuating voice. But he had had to leave St. Petersburg the next day. It was one of those things that might have, but had not, happened. How strange! She might have liked him. How strange; she never would see him. And she sat dreaming a long while.

Owen had given her a clasp, composed of two large emerald bosses set with curious antique gems, when she played Brunnhilde. The necklace of gem intaglios, in gold Etruscan filigree settings, he had given her for her Elsa—more than her Elsa was worth. For Elizabeth he had given her ropes of equal-sized pearls, and the lustre of the surfaces was considered extraordinary. For Isolde he had given her strings of black pearls which the jewellers of Europe had been collecting for more than a year. Every pearl had the same depth of colour, and hanging from it was a large black brilliant set in a mass of white brilliants. He had hung it round her neck as she went on the stage, and she had had only time to clasp his hands and say "dearest." These presents alone, she thought, could not be worth less than ten thousand pounds.

She kept her jewels in a small iron safe; it stood in her dressing-room under her washhand stand, and Merat surprised her two hours later sitting on her bed, with everything, down to the rings which she wore daily, spread over the counterpane. The maid gave her mistress a sharp look, remarking that she hoped Mademoiselle did not miss anything. In her hand there was a brooch consisting of three large emeralds set with diamonds; she often wore it at the front of her dress, it went particularly well with a flowered silk which Owen always admired. She calculated the price it would fetch, and at the same time was convinced that Monsignor's permission to sing on the concert platform, and possibly to go to Bayreuth to sing Kundry, would not affect her decision. She wanted to leave the stage. Half-measures did not appeal to her in the least. If she was to give up the stage, she must give it up wholly. It must be a thing over and done with, or she must remain on the stage and sing for the good of Art and her lovers. Since that was no longer possible, she preferred never to sing a note again in public. The worst wrench of all was her promise to Monsignor not to sing Grania, and since she had made that sacrifice, she could not dally with lesser things. Then, resuming her search among her jewellery, she selected the few things she would like to keep. She examined a cameo brooch set in filigree gold, ornamented with old rose diamonds, and she picked up a strange ring which a man whom Owen knew had taken from the finger of a mummy. It was a large emerald set in plain gold. A man who had been present at the unswathing of this princess, dead at least three thousand years, had managed to secure it, and Owen had paid him a large sum for it. She put it on her finger, and decided to keep a dozen other rings, the earrings she wore, and a few bracelets. The rest of her jewellery she would sell, if Owen refused to have them back. Of course there would be her teaching; she could not live in Dulwich doing nothing, and would take up her mother's singing classes....

Her mother had lost her voice in the middle of her career, and her daughter had abandoned the stage at the moment of her greatest triumph! Looking at her jewels scattered all over the bed, Evelyn wondered what was going to happen to her. Was she really going to leave the stage? She—Evelyn Innes? When she thought of it, it seemed impossible. If religion were only a craze. If she were to go back to Owen, or to other lovers? How strange it was; it seemed strange to be herself, and yet it was quite true. Remembering that on Sunday she would partake of the Body and Blood which her Saviour had given for the salvation of sinners, her soul suddenly hushed, and catching sight of the jewels which symbolised the sacrifice she was making, it seemed to her that she could afford much greater sacrifices for what she was going to receive....

She saw lights dying down in the distance, and the world which had once seemed so desirable seemed to her strangely trivial and easily denied. Already she could look back at the poor struggling ones, struggling for what to-morrow will be abandoned, forgotten, passing illusions; and she wondered how it was that she had not always thought as she thought to-day. Her thoughts passed into reveries, and she awoke, remembering that Monsignor had told her that he did not like her living alone in Park Lane. But in Dulwich she would be with her father, whom she had long neglected, and she would be near St. Joseph's and her confessor. At the same moment she remembered that she could not write to her lovers from Park Lane. She put her jewels back in the safe, and told Merat to pack sufficient things for a month, and to follow her with them to Dulwich. Merat asked for more precise instruction, but Evelyn said she must use her good sense; she was going away at once, and Merat must follow by a later train.

"Then Mademoiselle does not want the carriage?"

"No, I shall go by train."

* * * * *

She found her father in the workroom, and the sight of him in his cap and apron mending an old musical instrument caused many home scenes to flash across her mind, and she did not know whether it was from curiosity or a desire to please him that she asked the name of the strange little instrument he was repairing. It looked like an overgrown concertina, and he explained that it was a tiny virginal, and pointed out the date; it was made in 1631, in Roman notation.

"Father," she said, "I have come back to you; we shall never be separated any more—if you'll have me back."

"Have you back, dear! What has happened now?"

He stood with a chisel in his hand, and she noticed that he dug the point nervously into the soft deal plank. She sat down on a small wooden stool, and kicking the shavings with her feet, she said—

"Father, a great deal has happened. I have sent Owen away ... I shall never see him again; I'm sorry to have to speak about him to you; you mustn't be angry; he was very good to me, and he asked me to marry him; he did everything—I'm afraid I've broken his heart."

"You're very strange, Evelyn, and I don't know what answer to make to you.... Why did you send him away, and why did you refuse to marry him?"

"I sent him away because I thought it wrong to live with him, and I refused to marry him—well, I don't know, father, I don't know why I refused to marry him. It seemed to me that if he had wished to marry me he ought to have done so long ago."

"Is that the only reason you can give?"

"It is the only reason I know. You seem sorry for him, father, are you? I hope you are. He has been very good to me. I've often wished to tell you; it has often been in my heart to tell you that you should not hate him. He was very good to me, no one could have been kinder; he was very fond of me, you must not bear him any ill will."

"I never said that I bore him ill will. He made you a great singer, and you say he was very kind to you and wanted to marry you."

"Yes, and he was most anxious to see you, and he went with me to St. Joseph's the Sunday you gave the great Mass of Pope Marcellus. He was distressed that he could not see you to tell you about the choir."

"They sang better that Sunday than the Sunday you heard the 'Missa Brevis.' I have got two new trebles. One has an exquisite voice. I wish I could get a few good altos. It was the altos that were wrong when you heard the 'Missa Brevis.' But you didn't hear they were out of tune. That piano has falsified your ear, but it will come back to you."

"Dear father, how funny you are! If nothing were more wrong than my ear ..."

They glanced at each other hastily, and to change the subject he mentioned that he had had a letter that morning from Ulick. He had finished scoring the second act of Grania, and thinking that he was on safe ground, Mr. Innes told her that Ulick hoped to finish his score in the autumn. The third act would not take him long; he had a very complete sketch of the music, etc. "I shall enjoy going through his opera with him."

"Father, I don't know how to tell you. Will you ever forgive me or him. Ulick must not come back here—at least not while I am here. Perhaps I had better go."

The chisel dropped from his hand, and he stood looking at his daughter. His look was pitiful, and she could not bear to see him shake his head slowly from side to side.

"Poor father is wondering why I am like this;" and to interrupt his reflections she said—

"I don't know why I am like this; that's what you're thinking, father, but henceforth I'll be like mother and my aunts. They were all good women ... I have often wondered why I am like this." Their eyes met, and seized with a sudden dread lest he should think (if such were really the case) that he was the original cause—she seemed to read something like that in his eyes—she said, "You must forgive me, whatever I am; you know that we've always loved each other, and we always shall. Nothing can come between us; you must be sorry for me, and kiss me, and love me more than ever, for I've been very unhappy. I haven't told you all I have given up so that I might be a good woman; it is not easy to make the sacrifices I have made, but I am happier now that I have made them. Ulick—Ulick must not come here while I'm here, but you'll want to see him—I had better go. Father, dear, it is hard to say all these things. I've done nothing but bring you trouble. Now I've robbed you of your friend. For I've promised not to see Ulick again. If I stay here, father, he must not come—I'm ashamed to ask you this, but what am I to do? I bring trouble. Later on, perhaps, but for a long while he and I must not meet."

Mr. Innes stood looking at his daughter, and a peculiar puzzled expression had begun in his eyes, and had spread over his face. He suddenly shrugged his shoulders; the movement was like Evelyn's shrug, it expressed the same nervous hopelessness.

"I promised Monsignor that I would not see either."

"You went to confession—to him?"

Evelyn nodded.

"But how about Grania?"

"I'm not going to sing Grania. I've left the stage for good."

"Left the stage?"

"Yes, father, I've left the stage, and I could not go back even if Monsignor were to permit me. But you must not argue with me; I argued with myself until I nearly went mad. Night after night went by sleepless; I was mad one night, and should have poisoned myself if I had not found my scapular. But you mustn't question me. Some day when it is all far away I'll tell you the whole story. I cannot speak of it at present, it is all too near. Suffice it to say that I have repented, and have come to ask you if you'll have me back to live with you?"

"You're my daughter, and you must do as you like. You were always different from anyone else, I cannot cope with you. So you have left the stage, left the stage! What will people think?"

"I could not be a good woman and remain on the stage, that's what it comes to." In spite of the gravity of the scene, a smile trickled round Evelyn's lips, for she could not help seeing her father like a hen that has hatched out a duckling. He stood looking at her sadly. She had come back—but what new pond would she plunge into? "I am a very unsatisfactory person, I know that. I can't make people happy; but there it is, it can't be otherwise. If I don't sing on the stage, I can sing at your concerts. Come downstairs and let's have some music. We've talked enough.

"What shall we play—a Bach sonata? Ah, I remember this," she said, catching sight of the harpsichord part of a suite by J.P. Rameau, for the harpsichord and viola da gamba. "Where is the viola da gamba part?"

"In the bottom of that bookcase, I think; don't you remember it?"

"Well, it is some time since I've played it," she said, smiling, "but I'll try."

It seemed to her that she remembered it all wonderfully well, and she was surprised how every phrase came up correctly under her bow. But she stopped suddenly.

"I don't remember what comes next."

Mr. Innes played the phrase, she played it after him, but she broke down a little further on, and it took some time to find the music. "No, not in that shelf," cried Mr. Innes, "the next one; not that volume, the next."

"Ah, yes, I remember the volume, about the middle?" When she found the place she said, "Oh, yes, of course," and he answered—

"Ah, it seems simple enough now," and they went on together to the end.

"I've not lost much of my playing, have I?"

"A little stiffness, perhaps, and you've lost your sense of the old forms. Now let's play this rondeau of Marais."

When they had finished, it was dinner-time, and after dinner they had more music. Before going upstairs, Evelyn asked Agnes if there was any ink in her room. She had to ask her father for some writing paper, she would have avoided doing so if she could have helped it. She feared he would guess that she was writing to her lovers. She smiled—so odd did her scruples seem to her—she was writing to send them away. Her father's house was surely the right place. If it were to make appointments, that would be different. It was long past midnight when she read over her letter to Owen.

"Dear Owen,—A great deal has happened since we last met, and I am convinced that it would be unwise for me to see you in three months as I promised. My confessor is of the same opinion; he thinks three months too soon, and I must obey him. I have taken the step which I hope you will take some day, for you too are a Catholic. In going to confession and resolving not to see you again, I had a long struggle with my feelings; but God gave me grace to overcome them. You know me well enough by this time, and can have no doubt that I could not live with you again as your mistress, and as I do not feel that I could marry you, no course is open to me but to beg of you not to write to me, or to try to see me. Owen, I feel that all this is horrid, that I am horrid looked at from your side. I cannot seem anything else. I hate it all, but it has to be done. Perhaps one of these days you will see things as I do.

"I owe you—I do not know how much, but I owe you a great deal of money. I remember saying that Savelli's lessons were to be considered as a debt, also the expenses of the house in the Rue Balzac. You never would tell me what the rent of that house was, but as well as I can calculate, I owe you a thousand pounds for that year in Paris." (Evelyn paused. "It must be," she thought, "much more, but it would be difficult for me to pay more.")

"You have," she continued, "paid for a hundred other things besides Savelli's lessons and the house in the Rue Balzac, but it would be impossible to make out a correct account, I feel, too, that you gave me the greatest part of my jewellery thinking that one day I would be your wife; you would not have given me so much if you had not thought so. Therefore I feel it is only just to offer you the whole of it back. I will only ask you to allow me to keep a few trifles—the earrings you bought for me the day we arrived in Paris, the mummy's ring, etc., not more than half-a-dozen things in all. I should like to keep these in memory of a time which I ought to forget, but which I am afraid I shall never have the courage even to try to forget. Dear Owen, I cannot tell you why I cannot marry you, I only know that I cannot. I am obeying an instinct far stronger than I, and I cannot struggle against it any longer.

"One day perhaps we may meet—but it may not be for years, until we are both quite different.

"Sincerely yours,

"EVELYN INNES."

The moment she had written the address, she threw the pen aside, and she sat striving against an uncontrollable sense of misery. At last her pent-up tears ran over her eyelids. She flung herself on her bed, and lay weeping, shaken by short, choking sobs. All her courage of the morning had forsaken her; she could not face her new life, she could not send away Owen. Her inmost life rose in revolt. Why was this new sacrifice demanded of her? Why was her life to be made so hard, so impossible for her to endure? She felt she could not live in the life which she foresaw awaited her. Then she felt that she was being tried beyond the endurance of any woman. But the storm did not last, her sobs died away. She sat up, mopping her eyes with a soaking pocket handkerchief, and utterly exhausted by the violence of her emotions, she began to undress. She felt the impossibility of saying her prayers, her one longing was for sleep, oblivion; she wished herself dead, and was too worn out to put the thought from her, though she knew it was wrong.

In the morning the first thing she saw was the letter to Owen. There it was! And every word and letter sank into her brain. "Sir Owen Asher, Bart., Riversdale, Northamptonshire." She would have to post it, and never again would she see him. She questioned the right of the priest in obtaining from her a promise not to see him, so long as she did not sin. But Owen was an approximate cause of mortal sin....

Ashamed of her instability, and feeling herself unworthy and no longer pure as absolution had made her, she went that afternoon to St. Joseph's, and in confession laid the matter before Monsignor Mostyn. Regarding the money question, he approved of what she had written to Sir Owen, and he was far more indulgent regarding her breakdown than she had dared to hope. He had expected some such mental crisis. It was extraordinary the strength it gave her even to see his stern, grave face; she was thrilled by his certainty on all points, and it no longer seemed difficult to send the letter she had written, or to write a similar letter to Ulick, which he advised her to send by the same post. She began it the moment she got home, and she wrote in perfect confidence and courage, the words coming easily to her, so easily that there were times when she seemed to hear Monsignor speaking over her shoulder.

"Dear Ulick,—A very great event has happened in my life since I saw you. The greatest event that can happen in any life—Grace has been vouchsafed to me. Now I understand how sinful my life has been, as much from a human as a religious point of view. I deserted my dear father, I left him alone to live as best he could. I was not even faithful to my lover. From a worldly point of view I owed him everything, yet for the sake of my passion for you I encouraged myself for a while to dwell on his faults, to see nothing in him but the small and the mean. I strove to degrade him in my eyes so that I might find some excuse for loving you. You were nice, Ulick, you were kind, you were good to me, and I was enthusiastic about your genius. One of my greatest troubles now is that I shall not be able to sing your opera. For a long while this very thing prevented my repentance. I said to myself, 'It is impossible, I cannot, I have promised, I must do what I said I would do. He will think me hateful if I do not create the part.' But these hesitations between what is certainly right and what is certainly wrong existed in me because I did not then perceive how very little the things of this world are, compared with eternal things, and that nothing matters compared with the necessity of saving our souls. All this is now quite clear to me, and it would therefore be madness for me to remain on the stage, recognising as I do that it is a source of grave temptation to me. You will try to understand, dear Ulick, you will try to look at things from my point of view. You will see that it is impossible for me to act otherwise.

"I am living now with my father, and must not see you when you return to London. I have promised my confessor not to see you. One of these days, in years to come, when you and I are different beings, we may meet, but we must not see each other at present. I must beg of you not to write or to try to see me. My resolve is unalterable, and any attempt on your part to induce me to return to my old life will be useless. It as already far away and inconceivable to me. I know that by asking you not to come to Dulwich I am robbing my father of his friend. I have never brought happiness to anyone, not to father, not to Sir Owen, not to you, not to myself. If other proof were wanting, would not this fact be enough to convince me that my life has been all wrong? What it will be in the future I don't know, I have confidence in the goodness of God and in the wisdom of my spiritual adviser.—Sincerely yours,

"EVELYN INNES."

"P.S.—In course of conversation with my father, I mentioned inadvertently that you were my lover; I begged him not to be angry with you, but I know that I should not have mentioned your name. I must ask you to forgive me this too."

The next day and the day following were lived within herself, sometimes viewing God far away, as if at one end of a great plain, and herself kneeling penitent at the other. She was filled with thoughts of his infinite goodness and mercy, and of the miraculous intercession of the Virgin at the moment when she was about to commit a crime that would have lost her her soul for ever. She went to Mass daily, and took peculiar delight in reciting the hymn which Monsignor had given her for a penance. She regretted it was not more. It seemed to her such a trivial penance, and she reflected on the blackness of her sins, and the penances which the saints had imposed upon themselves. But her chief desire was to keep herself pure in thought, and she read pious books when she was alone, and encouraged her mind to dwell on the profound mystery in which she was going to participate, and to believe in the marvellous change it would produce in her.

It was on Friday morning that Agnes handed her Ulick's letter. She did not read it at once, it lay on the table while she was dressing, and she was uncertain whether it would not be better to put off reading it until she came back from St. Joseph's.

"Alas, from our first meeting, and before it, we were aware of the fate which has overtaken us. We heard it in our hearts, that numb restlessness, that vague disquietude, that prophetic echo which never dies out of ears attuned to the music of destiny ... Love you less, you who are the source of all joy to me? Evelyn, my heart aches and my brain is light with grief, but the terrible certitude persists that we are being drawn asunder. I see you like a ship that has cleared the harbour bar, and is already amid the tumult of the ocean.... We are ships, and the destiny of ships is the ocean, the ocean draws us both: we have rested as long as may be, we have delayed our departure, but the tide has lifted us from our moorings. With an agonised heart I watched the sails of your ship go up, and now I see that mine, too, are going aloft, hoisted by invisible hands. I look back upon the bright days and quiet nights we have rested in this tranquil harbour. Like ships that have rested a while in a casual harbour, blown hither by storms, we part, drawn apart by the eternal magnetism of the sea. I would go to you, Evelyn, if I could, and pray you not to leave me. But you would not hear: destiny hears no prayers. In the depths of our consciousness, below the misery of the moment, there lies a certain sense that our ways are different ways, and that we must fare forth alone, whither we know not, over the ocean's rim; and in this sense of destiny we must find comfort. Will resignation, which is the highest comfort, come to us in time? My eyes fall upon my music paper, and at the same time your eyes turn to the crucifix. Ours is the same adventure, though a different breeze fills the sails, though the prows are set to a different horizon. God is our quest—you seek him in dogma, I in art.

"But, Evelyn, my heart is aching so. How awful the word never, and the years are filled with its echoes. And the wide ocean which lies outside the harbour is so lonely, and I have no heart for any other joy. 'May we not meet again?' my heart cries from time to time; 'may not some propitious storm blow us to the same anchorage again, into the same port?' Ah, the suns and the seas we shall have sailed through would render us unrecognisable, we should not know each other. Last night I wandered by the quays, and, watching the constellations, I asked if we were divided for ever, if, when the earth has become part and parcel of the stars, our love will not reappear in some starry affinity, in some stellar friendship.—Yours,

"ULICK DEAN."

The symbol of the ships seemed to Evelyn to express the union and the division and the destiny that had overtaken them. She sat and pondered, and in her vision ships hailed each other as they crossed in mid-ocean. Ships drew together as they entered a harbour. Ships separated as they fared forth, their prows set towards different horizons. She sat absorbed in the mystery of destiny. Like two ships, they had rested side by side in a casual harbour. They had loved each other as well as their different destinies had allowed them. None can do more. She loved him better—in a way—but he was less to her than Owen. She felt that, and he had felt that.... As he said, if they were to meet again they would not recognise each other, so different were the suns that would shine upon them and the oceans they would travel through. She understood what he meant, and a prevision of her future life seemed to nicker up in her brain, like the sea seen through a mist; and through vistas in the haze she saw the lonely ocean, and her bark was already putting off from the shore. All she had known she was leaving behind. The destiny of ships is the ocean.

Owen's letter she received in the evening about six o'clock. She changed colour at the sight of it, and her hand trembled, and she tore the envelope across as she opened it.

"You ask me to make no attempt to save you. You ask me to stand on the bank while you struggle and are dragged down by the current. Evelyn, I have never disobeyed your slightest wish before, but I declare my right to use all means to save you from a terrible fate. I return to London to do so. God only knows if I shall succeed.... In any case I hope you will never allude again to any money questions. What I gave, I gave, and unless you want to kill me outright, never speak again of returning my presents.—As ever,

OWEN ASHER."

Her eyes ran through the lines, and her heart said, "How he loves me." But the temptation to see him quenched instantly in remembrance of her Communion, and she tore the letter hastily into two pieces, as if by destroying it she destroyed the difficulty it had created for her. She must not see him. But how was she to avoid meeting him? To-morrow be would be waiting in the street for her, and she walked about the room too agitated to think clearly. He seemed like the devil trying to come between her and God. She must not see him, of that she was quite sure. She would lock herself in her room. But then she would miss Holy Communion, and her heart was set on the Sacrament; the Sacrament alone could give her strength to persevere. To see him and to hear him would ruin her peace of mind, and peace of mind was essential to the reverent reception of the Sacrament. It was lost already, or very nearly. She stopped in her walk, she looked into her soul, she asked herself if any thought had crossed her mind which would render her unfit for Communion ... and on the spot she resolved to go straight to Monsignor and consult him. He would advise her, he would find some way out of the difficulty. But it was now six; she could not get to St. Joseph's before seven. It was late, but she did not think he would refuse to see her; he would know that it was only a matter of the greatest moment that would bring her to inquire for him at that hour.

It was as she expected. Monsignor did not receive anyone so late in the evening.

"Yes, I know, but I think Monsignor Mostyn will see me. Tell him—tell him that my business does not admit delay."

She was shown into the same waiting-room. This seemed to her a favourable presage, and she offered up a prayer that Monsignor would not refuse to see her; everything depended on that. She listened for his step; twice she was mistaken; at last the door opened. It was he, and he guessed, before she had time to speak, what had happened.

"One of those men," he said, "has come again into your life?"

She nodded, and, still unable to speak, she searched in her pocket for their letters.

"I received these letters to-day—one this morning, the other, Sir Owen's, just now. That was why I came. I felt that I had to see you."

"Pray sit down, my child, you are agitated." He handed her a chair.

"You remember you said I might go to Communion on Sunday, and if I were to meet him to-morrow it would—there is no temptation, I don't mean that—but I do not wish to be reminded of things which you told me I was to try to forget."

The priest stood reading the letters, and Evelyn sat looking into space, absorbed in the desire to escape from Owen. All her faith was in Monsignor, and she believed he would be able to save her from Owen's intrusion.

"I don't think you need fear anything from Mr. Dean."

"No, not from him."

Monsignor continued to read Ulick's letter. Evelyn wished he would read Owen's; Ulick's interested her not in the least.

"Mr. Dean seems a very extraordinary person. Does he believed in astrology, the casting of horoscopes, or is it mere affectation?"

"I don't know; he always talks like that. He believes, or says he believes, in Lir and the great Mother Dana, in the old Irish Gods. But, Monsignor, please read Sir Owen's letter. I want to know what I am to do."

He walked once across the room, and when he returned to the table he said half to himself, as if his thoughts had long out-stripped his words—

"I am glad I advised you to leave Park Lane, for of course he will go there first."

"He will easily find out I'm at Dulwich, he need not even ask—he will guess it at once."

"Yes, to be sure."

"If I am not to meet him I must go away—but where? All my friends and acquaintances are his friends. You would approve of none of them Monsignor," she said, smiling a little.

He did not seem to hear her. Suddenly he said, "I think you had better go and spend a few days at the Passionist Convent. The Reverend Mother sent you an invitation through me, you remember, so we need have no hesitation in proposing it. Indeed, I feel confident that they will receive you with the greatest pleasure. It will do you a great deal of good. You will have peace and quiet, my child; you will find yourself in an atmosphere of faith and purity which cannot but be helpful to you in your present unsettled state."

It seemed to Evelyn that that was what she had wanted all the time, only she had not been able to say so. Yes; to spend a week with those dear nuns, to sit in the convent garden, to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament in the convent church, it would be a real spiritual luxury.

"Yes, I should love to go," she said. "I feel it is just what I need. I have so much to think out, so much to learn, and at home there are a hundred things to distract me."

"Very well, then, that is settled. I will send the Reverend Mother word to-morrow; but there is no necessity, you can write yourself, and say you are coming in the afternoon; she will only have to get your room ready."

"But, Monsignor, my Communion? I had forgotten it was from you I was to receive Holy Communion. Of course I know it doesn't really make any difference, but still, you heard my confession, and I would far rather receive Communion this first time from you than from anyone else. I don't think it could be quite the same thing—if it weren't from you."

"And I should be sorry too, my child, as by God's grace I have been the means of bringing you thus far, not to complete your reconciliation to him. But I think we can manage that too without much difficulty. I say Mass to-morrow at nine o'clock, and will give you Communion then, and you can go to the convent for your retreat early in the afternoon. Will that suit you?"

And Evelyn could not find words to express her gratitude.

That evening she sat with her father. He was busy stringing a lute, and they had not spoken for some time; they often spent quite long whiles without speaking, and only occasionally they raised their eyes to see each other. The sensation of the other's presence was sufficient for their happiness.



CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

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?"

The cabman put the trunk inside the long passage, and Evelyn said—

"But my luggage."

"If you'll come into the parlour I'll get one of the sisters to help me to carry it upstairs."

Evelyn was sitting at the table turning over the leaves of the Confessions of St. Augustine, when the Reverend Mother entered. She seemed to Evelyn even smaller than she had done on the first occasion they had met; she seemed lost in the voluminous grey habit, and the long, light veil floated in the wind of her quick step.

"I'm glad you were able to come so soon. All the sisters are anxious to meet you, you who have done so much for us."

"I've done very little, Reverend Mother. Could I have done less for my old convent? I hope that your difficulties are at an end."

"At an end, no, but you helped us over a critical moment in the fortunes of our convent."

Her hands were leaned against the edge of the table, her white fingers, white with age, played with the hem of her veil, her blue, anxious eyes were fixed on Evelyn at once tenderly, expectantly, and compassionately. Her voice was the clear, refined voice which signifies society, and Evelyn would not have been surprised to learn that she belonged to an old aristocratic family, Evelyn imagined her to be a woman in whom the genius of government dominated, and who, not having found an outlet into the world, had turned to the cloister. Was that her story? Evelyn wondered, and suddenly seemed to forsee a day when she would hear the story which shone behind those clear blue eyes, and obliterated age from the white face.

They went up the circular staircase, at the top of which was a large landing; there were two rooms at the head of the stairs, and the Reverend Mother said—

"These are our guest chambers." Standing on a second landing, one step higher than the first, a solid wooden partition had been erected, and pointing to a door the nun said with a laugh, "That door leads to the sisters' cells. You must not make a mistake."

Evelyn was pleased to see that her room had two windows overlooking the garden. There was a table covered by a cloth at which she could write, and she bent over the bowl of roses and wondered which kind nun had gathered them. The Reverend Mother left her, saying that she would be told when supper was ready, and on looking round the room she perceived her portmanteau, which the lay sister had not unstrapped. She would have to unstrap it herself. She remembered that she had brought very few things with her, and yet she was surprised at the smallness of her luggage. For she usually took half-a-dozen dresses with her, now she had only brought one change, a grey alpaca. She thought she might have left her dressing-case behind, a plain brush and comb would have been all she needed. But at the last moment, she had felt that she could not do without these bottles of scent and brushes and nicknacks; they had seemed indispensable. The dressing-case was Owen's influence still pursuing her. She had not known why she was compelled to bring the dressing-case, now she knew—Owen! Never would she be able to wholly separate herself from him. He had become part of her.

As she stood in the convent room noticing the beeswaxed floor and the two rugs, one by the small iron bed, she remembered a hunting morning three years ago at Riversdale. She had gone to Owen's room to see if he were ready. A multitude of orders were being given there, the valet was searching anxiously in the large wardrobe, piled high with many various coats and trousers; Owen stood before the looking-glass tying a white scarf, and two footmen watched each movement, dreading a mistake. She remembered that she had been amused at the time, and she never recalled the scene without smiling. But she had liked Owen better for the innumerable superfluities, all of which were necessary to his happiness, the breakdown of any one of which made him the most miserable man alive. She remembered how she had secretly imitated him, and how she had gathered about her a mass of superfluous necessities. But they had never become necessities to her, they had always galled her. It was in a spirit of perversity she had imitated him. She had always felt it to be wrong to eat peaches at five francs a piece, and had always been aware of an inward resentment against the extravagance of a reserved carriage on the railway and private saloon on board the boat. She had always desired a simple life; the life of these nuns was a simple life, simpler perhaps than she cared for. There was no hot water in her room, she wondered how she would wash her hands, and smiling at her philosophical reflections, she thought how Owen would laugh if he could see her in her present situation—in a convent, crying out for a constant supply of hot water and her maid. A religious life with home comforts, that was what she wanted.

She was always a subject of amusement to herself, and she was still smiling when a knock awoke her from her whimsical reveries. She answered "Come in," and an elderly nun told her that supper was ready in the parlour. In this room, furnished with a table and six chairs and four pious prints, Evelyn ate her convent meal, a sort of mixed meal, which included soup, cold meat, coffee, jam and some unripe pears. The porteress took the plates away, and somehow Evelyn could not help feeling that she was giving a good deal of trouble. She could see that the nuns did everything for themselves, and she abandoned hope of ever finding a can of hot water in her room. She remembered that when she made her retreat some years ago, she had not noticed these things. She owed all her wants to Owen. Mother Philippa came in, delighted to see her, and anxious to know if she had everything she wanted.

"I thought you would be sure to be going abroad, and that next Easter, the time you were here before, would be the time to ask you."

"But the Reverend Mother thought that now would be a better time."

"Yes, she said that Easter was a long way off, and that a rest would do you good after singing all the season in London."

Evelyn wondered what idea the phrase "the season in London" awoke in the mind of the nun. A little puzzled look did pass in her eyes, and then she resumed her friendly chatter. Evelyn listened, more interested in Mother Philippa's kind, amicable nature than in what she said. She imagined in different circumstances what a good wife she would have been, and what a good mother! "But she is happier as she is." Evelyn could not imagine any soul-rending uncertainties in Mother Philippa. At a certain age, at seventeen or eighteen, she had felt that she would like to be a nun; very probably she was not any more pious than her sisters; she had merely felt that the life would suit her. That was her story. Evelyn smiled, and looked into Mother Philippa's mild eyes, in which there was nothing but simple kindness, and with a yes and a no she kept the conversation going till the bell rang for Office.

"I do not know if you would care to come to church. Perhaps you are tired after your journey?"

"Journey! I have only driven a few miles."

Evelyn ran upstairs for her hat, and she followed the nun down the cloister which led to the church.

"That is your door, it will take you into the outer church."

The nuns' choir was still empty, but the two candles on the high altar were already lit, ready for Matins and Lauds. Evelyn had only just taken her place, when at that moment a door opened on the other side of the grille, and the grey figures, their heads a little bent, came in couples and took their place in the stalls. They were wonderfully beautiful and impressive, and the idea they represented seemed to Evelyn extraordinary, simple and true. For, once we are convinced that there is a God, and that we are here to save our souls, it were surely folly to think of anything else. Our loves and our ambitions, what are they when we consider him? and Evelyn remembered how he waits for us in an eternity of bliss and love, only asking for our love. These were the wise ones, they thought of the essential and let the ephemeral and circumstantial go by them. Even from a worldly point of view, their life was the wiser, since it produced the greater happiness. Owen was a proof of this. She remembered how he used to say he had the finest place, the most beautiful pictures, and the most desirable mistress in Europe. Yet he was always the unhappiest man she knew. His life had been an unceasing effort to capture happiness, and he had failed because he had sought happiness from without instead of seeking it from within. He lived in externals, he was dependent on a multitude of things, the breakdown of any one of which was sufficient to cause him the acutest misery. The howl of a dog, the smell of a cigar, any trifle was sufficient to wreck his happiness. He had taught her to live in external things, to place her faith in the world instead of in her own conscience. How unhappy she had been; she had been driven to the brink of suicide. Ah, if it had not been for Monsignor. She bent her face on her hands, and did not dare to think further.

When her prayer was finished, she listened to the high monotonous chant of the nuns reciting Matins. It sank into her soul, soothing it, and at the same time inspiring an ardent melancholy. The long, unbroken rhythm flowed on and on, each side of the choir chanting an alternate verse. In the dimness of her sensation, Evelyn lost count of time, nor did she know of what she was thinking. She was suddenly awakened by a sound of shuffling. The nuns had risen to their feet, and in the middle of the floor a sister began the lessons in a shrill voice, keeping always on the same note, never letting her voice fall at the close of the sentences. Evelyn grew more interested; the rite was full of a penetrating mystery. She viewed the lines of grey nuns and heard the Latin syllables. These poor nuns whom she was just now pitying for their ignorance of life could at all events read the Office in Latin.



CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

When she opened her eyes and saw the convent room, she remembered how she had come there. Her still dreaming face lighted up with a smile, and she began to wonder what was going to happen next. Soon after, someone knocked. It was the little porteress telling her that it was seven o'clock. Evelyn expected her to come in, pull up the blinds and pour out her bath. But she did not even open the door, and Evelyn lay looking through the strange room, unable to face the discomfort of a small basin of cold water. She would have to do her hair herself, and there was no toilette table. The convent seemed suddenly a place to flee from; she hadn't realised that it would be like this.... But it would never do for her to miss Mass, and she sat on the edge of the bed, unable to think of any solution of her difficulties. The only glass in the room was about a foot square; it had been placed on the chest of drawers, and nothing seemed to Evelyn more inefficient than this wretched glass. Its very position on the top of the chest of drawers was vexatious. She could not even get it into the proper angle, and when she removed the piece of paper that held it in position, it swung round and its back confronted her. That morning it seemed as if she could not dress herself. Her hair had curled itself into many a knot; she nearly broke the comb, and her hand dropped by her side, and then she laughed outright, having caught sight of some part of her dejection. As she hooked on her skirt she reflected on the necessity of not leaving bottles of scent nor too many sponges for the observation of the nuns; and the nightgown she had brought was certainly not a conventual garment.

She hurried downstairs, and was just in time to see the nuns coming into church. They came in by a side door, walking two by two, and Evelyn was again struck by the beauty and mystery of this grey procession. She had seen on the stage the outward show of men who had renounced the world—the pilgrims in "Tannhaeuser," the knights in "Parsifal," but this was no outward show. The women she was now witnessing had renounced the world; the life she was witnessing was the life they lived from hour to hour, from day to day, from year to year. She had included lovers amid their renunciations; such inclusion was ridiculous, for of such sins as hers they had not even dreamed. To pass through life without knowing life! To have renounced, to have refused love, friends, art, everything, dinner-parties, conversations, all the distractions which we believe make life endurable, to have refused these things from the beginning—not even to have been tempted to taste, not even to have desired to put life to the test of a fugitive personal experience, but to have divined from the first, by instinct, by the grace of God, the worthlessness of life—that was what was so wonderful. Mother Philippa, that simple nun, had done this, instinct had led her—there was no other explanation. She had arrived at the same conclusion as the wisest of the philosophers and without any soul-searching, by instinct—each of the humble lay sisters, the little porteress had done this. And Evelyn was filled with shame when she thought of the effort it had cost her to free herself from a life of sin.

In extraordinary beauty of grey habit and veil and solemn procession, the nuns passed to their seats. Now they were kneeling altarwise, and Evelyn was still occupied by the thought that this was not outward show as she had often seen it on the stage, but the thing itself. This was not acting, this was truth, the truth of all their lifetimes.

Suddenly began the plaint of the organ, and some half-dozen voices sang a hymn; and these pale, etiolated voices interested her. It was not the clear, sexless voice of boys, these were women's voices, out of which sex had faded like colour out of flowers; and these pale, deciduous voices wailing a poor, pathetic music, so weak and feeble that it was almost interesting through its very feebleness, interested Evelyn. Tears trembled in her eyes, and she listened to the poor voices rising and falling, breaking forth spasmodically in the lamentable hymn. "Desolate" and "forgotten" were the words that came up in her mind.

They were still kneeling altarwise; their profiles turned from her. Outside of the choir stalls, on either side of the church, were two special stalls, and the Reverend Mother and the sub-prioress knelt apart. Their backs were turned to Evelyn, and she noticed the fine delicate shoulders of the Reverend Mother, and the heavy figure of Mother Philippa. "Even in their backs they are like themselves," she thought. She smiled at her descriptive style, "like themselves," and then, seeing that Mass had begun, she resolutely repressed all levity, and began her prayers. She had not felt especially pious till that moment, and to rouse herself she remembered Monsignor's words, "That at the height of her artistic career she should have been awakened to a sense of her own exceeding sinfulness was a miracle of his grace," and she felt that the devotion of her whole life to his service would not be a sufficient return for what he had done for her. But in spite of her efforts she followed the sacrifice of the Mass in her normal consciousness until the bell rang for the Elevation. When the priest raised the Host she was conscious of the Real Presence. She raised her eyes a little, and the bent figures of the nuns, their veils hanging loose about them, contributed to her exaltation, and with a last effort, holding as it were her life in her hands, she asked pardon of God for her sins.

Then the pale, etiolated voices of the nuns, the wailing of these weak voices—there were three altos, three sopranos—began again. They were singing an Agnus Dei, a simple little music nowise ugly, merely feeble, touchingly commonplace; they were singing in unison thirds and fifths, and the indifferent wailing of the voices contrasted with the firmness of the organist's touch; and Evelyn knew that they had one musician among them. She listened, touched by the plaintive voices, so feeble in the ears of man, but beautiful in God's ears. God heard beyond the mere notes; the music of the intention was what reached God's ears. The music of these poor voices was more favourable in his ears than her voice. Months she had spent seeking the exact rhythm of a phrase intended to depict and to rouse a sinful desire. Though the hymns were ugly—and they were very ugly—she would have done better to sing them; and she sought to press herself into the admission that art which does not tend to the glory of God is vain and harmful. Far better these hideous hymns, if singing them conducts to everlasting life. But every time she pressed her mind towards an inevitable conclusion, it turned off into an obscure bypath. She brought it back like an intractable ass, but the stubborn beast again dodged her, and she had to abandon the attempt to convince herself that art which did not tend to the honour and glory of God should be suppressed—should be at least avoided. Once we were convinced that there was a God and a resurrection, this world must become as nothing in our eyes, only it didn't become as nothing in our eyes; every sacrifice should become easy, but every sacrifice didn't become easy. That was the point; to these nuns, perhaps, not to her. At least not yet.

She had fussed a great deal this morning because she had no hot water to wash with. Seven o'clock had seemed to her somewhat early to get up. But they had been up long before. She had heard of nuns who got up at four in the morning to say the Office. She did not know what time these nuns got up, but she felt that she was not capable of much greater sacrifice than six or seven o'clock. These nuns lived on a little coarse food, and spent the day in prayer. She thought of their aching knees in the long vigils of their adorations. She understood that the inward happiness their life gives them compensates them for all their privations. She understood that they are the only ones who are happy, yet the knowledge did not help her; she felt that she would never be happy in their happiness, and a great sorrow came over her. Mass was over, and again the beautiful procession, with bowed heads and meekly folded veils, glided out of the church. Only the watchers remained.

Last night she had sat watching the stars shining on the convent garden. There were, as Owen said, twenty millions of suns in the Milky Way; beyond the Milky Way there were other constellations of which we know nothing, nebulae which time has not yet resolved into stars, or stars so distant that time has not yet brought their light hither. But why seek mystery beyond this poor planet? It furnishes enough, surely. That we should see the stars, that we should know the stars, that we should place God above the stars—are not these common facts as wonderful as the stars themselves? That those twenty or five-and-twenty women should give up all the seduction of life for the sake of an idea, accepting Owen's theory that it is but an idea, even so the wonder of it is not less; even from Owen's point of view is not this convent as wonderful as the stars?

On coming out of church, she was told that in half-an-hour her breakfast would be ready in the parlour, and to loosen the mental tension—she had thought and felt a great deal in the last hour—she asked the lay sister who were the nuns who sang in the choir. The lay sister answered her perfunctorily. Evelyn could see that she was not open at that moment to conversation. She guessed that the sister had work to attend to, and was not surprised that she did not come back to take the things away. Although only just begun, the day had already begun to seem long. She proposed to herself some pious reading; and wondered how she was going to get through the day. She would have liked to go into the garden; but she did not know the rules of the convent, and feared to transgress them. However, she was free to go to her room. The books she had brought with her would help her to get through the morning.

Berlioz's Memoirs I The faded voices she had heard that morning singing dreary hymns were more wonderful than his orchestral dreams. Nor did she find the spiritual stimulus she needed in Pater's Imaginary Portraits. Some moody souls reflecting with no undue haste, without undue desire to arrive at any definite opinion concerning certain artistic problems, did not appeal to her. She put the book aside, fearing that she was in no humour for reading that morning; and with little hope of being interested, she took up another book. The size of the volume and the disproportion of the type seemed to drag her to it, and the title was a sort of prophetic echo of the interest she was to find in the book. Her thoughts clouded in a sense of delight as she read; she followed as a child follows a butterfly, until the fluttering colour disappears in the sky. And before she was aware of any idea, the harmony of the gentle prose captivated her, and she sat down, holding in her heart the certitude that she was going to be enchanted. The book procured for her the delicious sensualism of reading things at once new and old. It seemed to her that she was reading things that she had known always, but which she had somehow neglected to think out for herself. The book seemed like her inner self suddenly made clear. All that the author said on the value of Silence was so true. She raised her eyes from the page to think. She seemed to understand something, but she could not tell what it was. The object of every soul is to unite itself to another soul, to be absorbed in another, to find life and happiness in another; the desire of unison is the deepest instinct in man. But how little, the author asked, do words help us to understand? We talk and talk, and nothing is really said; the conversation falls, we walk side by side, our eyes fixed on the quiet skies, and lo! our souls come together and are united in their immortal destiny. She again raised her eyes from the page—now she understood, and she thought a long while. The chapter entitled "The Profound Life" interested her equally. The nuns realised it, but those who live in the world live on the surface of things. To live a life of silence and devotion, illumined not from without but from within, the eternal light that never fails or withers, and to live unconscious of the great stream of things, our back turned to that great stream flowing mysteriously, solemnly, like a river! The chapter entitled "Warnings" had for her a strangely personal meaning. How true it is that we know everything, only we have not acquired the art of saying it. Had she not always known that her destiny was not with Owen, that he was but a passing, not the abiding event of her life? She looked through the convent room, and the abiding event of her life now seemed to murmur in her ear, seemed to pass like a shadow before her eyes. At the moment when she thought she was about to hear and see, a knock came at her door, and the revelation of her destiny passed, with a little ironical smile, out of her eyes and ears.

Her visitor was a strange little nun whom she had not seen before. Over her slim figure the white serge habit fell in such graceful, mediaeval lines as Evelyn had seen in German cathedrals; and her face was delicate and childlike beneath the white forehead band. She came forward with a diffident little smile.

"Reverend Mother sent me to you; she is watching now, or she would have come herself, but she thought you might like me to take you round the garden. She will join us there when she comes out of church. But Reverend Mother said you must do just as you liked."

The little nun corresponded to her mood even as the book had done; she seemed an apparition, a ghost risen from its pages. Her face was a thin oval, and the purity of the outline was accentuated by the white kerchief which surrounded it. The nose was slightly aquiline, the chin a little pointed, the lips well cut, but thin and colourless—lips that Evelyn thought had never been kissed, and that never would be kissed. The thought seemed disgraceful, and Evelyn noticed hastily the dark almond eyes that saved the face from insipidity; the black eyebrows were firmly and delicately drawn, her complexion, without being pale, was extraordinarily transparent, and the thin hands and long, narrow fingers, half hidden beneath the long sleeves, were in the same idea of mediaeval delicacy.

"I was longing to go out, but I had not the courage. I feared it might be against the rule for me to go into the garden alone. But tell me first who you are."

"Oh, I'm Sister Veronica. I'm only a novice as yet."

Evelyn noticed that, unlike the other nuns she had seen, Sister Veronica wore neither the silver heart on her breast, suspended by a red cord, nor the long straight scapular which gave such dignity to the religious habit. Her habit was held in at the waist by a leather girdle; it looked as though it might slip any moment over the slight, boyish hips, and by her side hung a rosary of large black beads.

Sister Veronica warned Evelyn that she must be careful how she went down the staircase, as it was very slippery. Evelyn said she would be careful; she added that the sisters kept the stairs in beautiful order, and wondered what her next remark would be. She was nervous in the presence of these convent women, lest by some unfortunate remark she should betray herself. And when they reached the garden it was Sister Veronica who was the most self-possessed—she was already confessing to Evelyn that they had all felt very nervous knowing that a "real" singer was listening to them.

"Oh, do you sing?" Evelyn asked eagerly.

"Well, I have to try," Sister Veronica answered, with a little laugh. "Mother Prioress thought perhaps I might learn, so she put me in the choir, but Sister Mary John says I shall never be the least use."

"Is Sister Mary John the sister who teaches you?"

"Yes; it is she who played the organ at Mass. She loves music. She is simply longing to hear you sing, Miss Innes. Do you think you will sing at Benediction this afternoon for us? It would be lovely."

"I don't know, really. You see I haven't been asked yet."

"Oh, Reverend Mother is sure to ask you—at least I hope she will. We all want to hear you so much."

They were sitting in the shadow of a great elm; all around was a wonderful silence, and to turn the conversation from herself, Evelyn asked Sister Veronica if she didn't care for their beautiful garden.

"Oh, yes, indeed I do. I'm glad you like it.... When I was a child my greatest treat was to be allowed to play in the nuns' garden."

"Then you knew the convent long before you came to be a nun yourself?"

"Oh, yes, I've known it all my life."

"So it was not strange when you came here first?"

"No, it was like coming home."

Evelyn repeated the nun's words to herself, "Like coming home." And she seemed to see far into their meaning. Here was an illustration of what she had read in the book—she and Veronica seemed to understand each other in the silence. But it became necessary to speak, and in answer to a question, Sister Veronica told Evelyn that there were four novices and two postulants in the novitiate, and that the name of the novice mistress was Mother Mary Hilda. The novitiate was in the upper storey of the new wing, above the convent refectory.

"And here is Reverend Mother," and Sister Veronica suddenly got up. Evelyn got up too, and they waited till the elderly nun slowly crossed the lawn. Evelyn noticed, even when the Reverend Mother was seated, that Veronica remained standing.

"You can go now, Veronica."

Veronica smiled a little good-bye to Evelyn, and left them immediately.

"Veronica told you, Miss Innes, I was taking my watch?"

"Yes, Reverend Mother."

"I hope she has not been wearying you with the details of our life?"

"On the contrary, I have been very much interested.... Your life here is so beautiful that I long to know more about it. At present my knowledge is confined to the fact that the second storey in the new wing is the novitiate, and that there are four novices and two postulants." The Reverend Mother smiled, and after a pause Evelyn added—

"But Sister Veronica is very young."

"She is older than she looks, she is nearly twenty. Ever since she was quite a child she wished to be a nun. Even then her mind was quite made up."

"She told me that when she was a child her great pleasure was to be allowed to walk in the convent garden."

"Yes. You don't know, perhaps, that she is my niece. My poor brother's child. She was left an orphan at a very early age. Her's is a sad story. But God has been good: she never doubted her vocation, she passed from an innocent childhood to a life dedicated to God. So she has been spared the trouble that is the lot of those who live in the world."

An accent of past but unforgotten sorrow had crept into her voice; and once more Evelyn was convinced that she had not, like Veronica, passed from innocent childhood into the blameless dream of convent life. She had known the world and had renounced it. In the silence that had fallen Evelyn wondered what her story might be, and whether she would ever hear it. But she knew that in the convent no allusion is made to the past, that there the past is really the past.

"I hope that you will sing for us at Benediction. All the sisters are longing to hear you. It will be such a pleasure to them."

"I shall be very glad ... only I have brought nothing with me. But I daresay I shall find something among the music you have here."

"Sister Mary John will find you something; she is our organist."

"And an excellent musician. I noticed her playing."

"She has always been anxious to improve the choir, but unfortunately none of the sisters except her has any voice to speak of.... You might sing Gounod's 'Ave Maria' at Benediction; you know it, of course, what a beautiful piece of music it is. But I see that you don't admire it."

"Well," Evelyn said, smiling, "it is contrary to all the principles I've been brought up in."

"We might walk a little; we are at the end of the summer, and the air is a little cold. You do not mind walking very slowly? I'm forbidden to walk fast on account of my heart."

They crossed the sloping lawn, and walking slowly up St. Peter's walk, amid sad flutterings of leaves from the branches of the elms, Evelyn told the Reverend Mother the story of the musical reformation which her father had achieved. She asked Evelyn if it would be possible to give Palestrina at the convent and they reached the end of the walk. It was flushed with September, and in the glittering stillness the name of Palestrina was exquisite to speak. They passed the tall cross standing at the top of the rocks, and the Reverend Mother said, speaking out of long reflection—"Have I never heard any of the music you sing? Wagner I have never heard, but the Italian operas, 'Lucia' and 'Trovatore,' or Mozart? Have you never sung Mozart?"

"Very little. I am what is called a dramatic soprano. The only Italian opera I've sung is 'Norma.' Do you know it?"

"Yes."

"I've sung Leonore—not in 'Trovatore,' in 'Fidelio.'"

"But surely you admire 'Trovatore'—the 'Miserere,' for instance. Is not that beautiful?"

"It is no doubt very effective, but it is considered very common now." Evelyn hummed snatches of the opera; then the waltz from "Traviata." "I've sung Margaret."

"Ah."

And as she hummed the Jewel Song she watched the Reverend Mother's face, and was certain that the nun had heard the music on the stage. But at that moment the angelus bell rang. Evelyn had forgotten the responses, and as she walked towards the convent she asked the Reverend Mother to repeat them once again, so that she might have them by heart. She excused herself, saying how difficult was the observance of religious forms for those who live in the world.

After dinner she wrote two letters. One was to her father, the other was to Monsignor, and having directed the letters she imagined the postal arrangement to be somewhat irregular. After Benediction she would ask Veronica what time the letters left the convent. And looking across the abyss which separated them, she saw her passionate self-centred past and Veronica's little transit from the schoolroom to the convent. It seemed strange to her that she never had what might be called a girl friend. But she had arrived at a time when a woman friend was a necessity, and it now suddenly occurred to her that there would be something wonderfully sweet and satisfying in the uncritical love of a woman younger than herself. She felt that the love of this innocent creature who knew nothing, who never would know anything, and who therefore would suspect nothing, would help her to forget her past as Monsignor wished. She felt a sympathy awaken in her for her own sex which she had never known before, and this yearning was confounded in a desire to be among those who knew nothing of her past. Now she was glad that she had refrained from taking the Reverend Mother into her confidence, and she wondered how much Monsignor had told her the day they had walked in the garden; it relieved her to remember that he knew very little except what she had told him in confession.

Someone knocked. She answered, "Come in." It was Mother Philippa and another nun.

"I hope we're not interrupting.... But you're reading, I see."

"No, I was thinking;" and glad of the interruption, she let the book fall on her knees. "Pray come in, Mother Philippa," and Evelyn rose to detain her.

The nuns entered very shyly. Evelyn handed them chairs, and as she did so she remarked the tall, angular nun who followed Mother Philippa, and whose face expressed so much energy.

"Good afternoon, Miss Innes. I hope you slept well last night, and did not find your bed too uncomfortable?"

"Thank you, Mother Philippa. I liked my bed. I slept very well." Evelyn drew two chairs forward, and Mother Philippa introduced Evelyn to Sister Mary John. And while she explained that she had heard from the Reverend Mother that Miss Innes had promised to sing at Benediction, Sister Mary John sat watching Evelyn, her large brown eyes wide open. Her eagerness was even a little comical, and Evelyn smiled through her growing liking for this nun. She was unlike any other nun she had seen. Nuns were usually formal and placid, but Sister Mary John was so irreparably herself that while the others presented feeble imitations of the Reverend Mother's manner, her walk and speech, Sister Mary John continued to slouch along, to cross her legs, to swing her arms, to lean forward and interrupt when she was interested in the conversation; when she was not, she did not attempt to hide her indifference. Evelyn thought that she must be about eight-and-twenty or thirty. The eyes were brown and exultant, and the eyebrows seemed very straight and black in the sallow complexion. All the features were large, but a little of the radiant smile that had lit up all her features when she came forward to greet Evelyn still lingered on her face. Now and then she seemed to grow impatient, and then she forgot her impatience and the smile floated back again. At last her opportunity came, and she seized it eagerly.

"I'm quite ashamed, Miss Innes, we sang so badly this morning; our little choir can do better than that."

"I was interested; the organ was very well played."

"Did you think so? I have not sufficient time for practice, but I love music, and am longing to hear you sing. But the Reverend Mother says that you have brought no music with you."

"I hear," said Mother Philippa, "that you do not care for Gounod's 'Ave Maria.'"

"If the Reverend Mother wishes me to sing it, I shall be delighted to do so, if Sister Mary John has the music."

Sister Mary John shook her head authoritatively, and said that she quite understood that Miss Innes did not approve of the liberty of writing any melody over Bach's beautiful prelude. Besides, it required a violin. The conversation then turned on the music at St. Joseph's. Sister Mary John listened, breaking suddenly in with some question regarding Palestrina. She had never heard any of his music; would Miss Innes lend her some? Was there nothing of his that they could sing in the convent?

"I do not know anything of his written for two voices. You might play the other parts on the organ, but I'm afraid it would sound not a little ridiculous."

"But have you heard the Benedictine nuns sing the plain chant; they pause in the middle of the verse—that is the tradition, is it not?"

Meanwhile Mother Philippa sat forgotten. Evelyn noticed her isolation before Sister Mary John, and addressed an observation to her. But Mother Philippa said she knew nothing about music, and that they were to go on talking as if she weren't there. But a mere listener is a dead weight in a conversation; and whenever Evelyn's eyes went that way, she could see that Mother Philippa was thinking of something else; and when she looked towards Sister Mary John she could see that she was longing to be alone with her. A delightful hour of conversation awaited them if they could only find some excuse to get away together, and Evelyn looked at Sister Mary John, saying with her eyes that the suggestion must come from her.

"If I were to take Miss Innes to the organ loft and show her what music we have—don't you think so, Mother Philippa?'

"Yes, I think that would be the best thing to do.... I'm sure the Reverend Mother would see no objection to your taking Miss Innes to the organ loft."

Mother Philippa did not see the look of relief and delight that passed in Sister Mary John's eyes, and it was Evelyn who had a scruple about getting rid of Mother Philippa.

"I was so disappointed not to have seen you the day you came here; and what made it so hard was that it was first arranged that it was the Reverend Mother and I who were to meet you. I had looked forward to seeing you. I love music, and it is seven years since I've spoken to anyone who could tell the difference between a third and a fourth. There's no one here who cares about music."

It seemed to Evelyn that the problem of life must have presented itself to Sister Mary John very much as it presents itself to a woman who is suddenly called to join her husband in India. The woman hates leaving London, her friends, and all the habits of life in which she has grown up; but she does not hesitate to give up these things to follow the man she loves out to India.

"I don't know why it was settled that Mother Philippa was to meet you instead of me; it seemed so useless, meeting you meant so little to her and so much to me; I'm always inclined to argue, but that day the Reverend Mother's heart was very bad; she had had a fainting fit in the early morning; we all got up to pray for her."

"Yet she was quite cheerful; I never should have guessed."

"Mother Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda tried to dissuade her. But she would see you."

"Then it is with her heart disease that the Reverend Mother rules the convent," Evelyn thought, as she followed Sister Mary John up the spiral staircase to the organ loft. She looked over the curtained railing into the church. The watcher knelt there, her head bowed, her habit still as sculpture, and Evelyn heard Sister Mary John pulling out her music. She could not find what she wanted, and she sat with her legs apart, throwing from side to side piles of old torn music.

"Never can one find a piece of music when one wants it: I don't know if you have noticed that nothing is so difficult to find as a piece of music. Day after day it is under your hands, it would seem as if there was not another piece in the organ loft, but the moment you want it, it has disappeared. I don't know how it is."

"What are you looking for? Perhaps I can help you."

"Well, I was thinking that you might like"—Sister Mary John looked up at Evelyn—"I suppose you can sing B flat, or even C?"

"Yes, I can sing C;" and Evelyn thought of the last page of the "Dusk of the Gods." "But what are you looking for?"

Sister Mary John did not answer. She threw the music from side to side, every minute growing more impatient. "It is most strange," she said at last, looking up at Evelyn. Evelyn smiled. With all her brusque, self-willed ways, Sister Mary John was clearly a lady born and an intelligent woman.

"I'm afraid I shall not be able to find you anything that you'd care to sing."

"Oh, yes, I shall," Evelyn replied encouragingly.

"It is all such poor stuff. We've no singers here. Do you know, I've never heard a great singer, and I've often wished to. The only thing I regret is not having heard a little music before I came here. But I've heard of Wagner; you sing Wagner, don't you, Miss Innes?"

"Yes, I sing little else. 'Fidelio'—"

"Ah, I know some of the music. Do you sing—"

Sister Mary John hummed a few bars.

"Yes, I sing that."

"Well, I shall hear you sing to-day. I've been wishing to go to St. Joseph's to hear Palestrina. You were brought up on music. You can sing at sight—in the key that it is written in?"

"Yes, I think so."

"But all prima-donnas can do that?"

"No; on the contrary, I think I'm the only one. Singers on the operatic stage learn their parts at the piano."

She could see that to Sister Mary John music was the temptation of her life, and she imagined that her confession must be a little musical record. She had lost her temper with Sister So-and-So because she could not, etc. But time was getting on. If she was to sing that afternoon, she must find something, and seeing that Sister Mary John lingered over some sheets of music, as if she thought that it presented some possibility, Evelyn asked her what it was. It was a Mass by Mozart for four voices, which Sister Mary John had arranged for a single voice.

"The choir and I sing the melody in unison, and I play the entire Mass on the organ."

Evelyn smiled, and seeing that the smile distressed the nun, she was sorry.

"To you, of course, it would sound absurd, it does to me too, but it was a little change, it was the only thing I could think of. We have some pieces written for two voices, but I can hardly get them sung. I have to teach the sisters the parts separately. Till they know them by heart, I can't trust them. It is impossible sometimes not to lose one's temper. If we had a few good voices, people would come to hear them, the convent would be spoken about, and some charitable people would come forward and pay off our mortgages. I've lain awake at night thinking of it; the Reverend Mother agrees with me. But in the way of voices we've been as unlucky as we could well be. I've been here eight years—there was one, but she died six years ago of consumption. It is heartbreaking. I play the organ, I beat the time, and, as I said to them the other day, 'There are five of you, and I'm the only one that sings.'"

Sister Mary John asked Evelyn if she composed. Evelyn told her that she did not compose, and remembering Owen's compositions, she hoped that Sister Mary John had not an "O Salutaris" in manuscript.

"Let me look through the music; we are talking of other things instead of looking."

"So we are.... Let us look." At the bottom of a heap, Sister Mary John found Cherubini's "Ave Maria."

"Could you sing this? It is a beautiful piece of music."

Evelyn read it over.

"Yes," she said, "I can sing it, but it wants careful playing; the end is a sort of little duet between the voice and the organ. If you don't follow me exactly, the effect will be like this," and she showed what it would be on the mute keyboard.

"You haven't confidence in my playing."

"Every confidence, Sister Mary John, but remember I don't know the piece, and it is not easy. I think we had better try it over together."

"I should like to very much, but you will not sing with all your voice?"

"No, we'll just run through it...."

The nun followed in a sort of ecstasy, and when they came to what Evelyn had called the duet, she played the beautiful antiphonal music looking up at the singer. The second time Evelyn was surer of herself, and she let her voice flow out a little in suave vocalisation, so that she might judge of the effect.

"I told you that I had never heard anyone sing before. If you were one of us!"

Evelyn laughed, and then, catching sight of the nun's eyes fixed very intently upon her, she spoke of the beauty of the "Ave Maria," and was surprised that she did not know anything of Cherubini's.

"Gracious, how the time has gone! That is the first bell for vespers."

She hurried away, forgetting all about Evelyn, leaving her to find her way back to her room as best she could. But Evelyn found Sister Mary John waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. She had come back for her, she had just remembered her, and Sister Mary John apologised for her absence of mind, and seemed distressed at her apparent rudeness. They walked a little way together, and the nun explained that it was not her fault; her absence of mind was an inheritance from her father. Everything she had she had inherited from him—"my love of music and my absence of mind."

She was intensely herself, quaint, eccentric, but she was, Evelyn reflected, perhaps more distinctly from the English upper classes than any of the nuns she had seen yet. She had not the sweetness of manner of the Reverend Mother, her manners were the oddest; but withal she had that refinement which Evelyn had first noticed in Owen, and afterwards in his friends, that style which is inheritance, which tradition alone can give. She had spoken of her father, and Evelyn could easily imagine Sister Mary John's father—a lord of old lineage dwelling in an eighteenth century house in the middle of a flat park in the Midlands. She could see a piece of artificial lake obtained by the damming of a small stream; one end full of thick reeds, in which the chatter of wild ducks was unceasing. But her family, her past, her name—all was lost in the convent, in the veil. The question was, had she renounced the world, or had she refused the world? Evelyn could not even conjecture. Sister Mary John was outside not only of her experience, but also of her present perception of things. Evelyn wondered why one of such marked individuality, of such intense personal will, had chosen a life the very raison d'etre of which was the merging of the individual will in the will of the community? Why should one, the essential delight of whose life was music, choose a life in which music hardly appeared? Was her piety so great that it absorbed every other inclination? Sister Mary John did not strike her as being especially religious. What instinct behind those brown eyes had led her to this sacrifice? Apparently at pains to conceal nothing, Sister Mary John concealed the essential. Evelyn could even imagine her as being attractive to men—that radiant smile, the beautiful teeth, and the tall, supple figure, united to that distinct personality, would not have failed to attract. God did not get her because men did not want her, of that Evelyn was quite sure.

There were on that afternoon assembled in the little white chapel of the Passionist Sisters about a dozen elderly ladies, about nine or ten stout ladies dressed in black, who might be widows, and perhaps three or four spare women who wore a little more colour in their hats; these might be spinsters, of ages varying between forty and fifty-five. Amid these Evelyn was surprised and glad to perceive three or four young men; they did not look, she thought, particularly pious, and perceiving that they wore knickerbockers, she judged them to be cyclists who had ridden up from Richmond Park. They had come in probably to rest, having left their machines at the inn. Even though she was converted, she did not wish to sing only to women, and it amused her to perceive that something of the original Eve still existed in her. But if any one of these young men should happen to have any knowledge of music, he could hardly fail to notice that it was not a nun who was singing. He would ride away astonished, mystified; he would seek the explanation of the mystery, and would bring his friend to hear the wonderful voice at the Passionist Convent. By the time he came again she would be gone, and his friend would say that he had had too much to drink that afternoon at the inn. They would not be long in finding an explanation; but should there happen to be a journalist there, he would put a paragraph in the papers, and all sorts of people would come to the convent and go away disappointed.

She looked round the church, calculating its resonance, and thought with how much of her voice she should sing so as to produce an effect without, however, startling the little congregation. The sermon seemed to her very long; she was unable to fix her attention, and though all Father Daly said was very edifying, her thoughts wandered, and wonderful legends and tales about a voice heard for one week at the Wimbledon Convent thronged her brain, and she invented quite a comic little episode, in which some dozen or so of London managers met at Benediction. She thought that their excuses one to the other would be very comic.

She was wearing the black lace scarf instead of a hat; it went well with the grey alpaca, and under it was her fair hair; and when she got up to go to the organ loft after the sermon, she felt that the old ladies and the bicyclists were already wondering who she was. Her involuntary levity annoyed her, and she forced a certain seriousness upon herself as she climbed the steep spiral staircase.

"So you have found your way ... this is our choir," and she introduced Evelyn to the five sisters, hurrying through their names in a low whisper. "We don't sing the 'O Salutaris,' as there has been exposition. We'll sing this hymn instead, and immediately after you'll sing the 'Ave Maria'; it will take the place of the Litany."

Then the six pale voices began to wail out the hymn, wobbling and fluctuating, the only steady voice being Sister Mary John's. Though mortally afraid of the Latin syllables, Evelyn seconded Sister Mary John's efforts, and the others, taking courage, sang better than usual. Sister Mary John turned delighted from the organ, and, her eyes bright with anticipation, said, "Now."

She played the introduction, Evelyn opened her music. The moment was one of intense excitement among the five nuns. They had gathered together in a group. The great singer who had saved their convent (had it not been for her they would have been thrown back upon the world) was going to sing. Evelyn knew what was passing in their minds, and was a little nervous. She wished they would not look at her so, and she turned away from them. Sister Mary John played the chord, and the voice began.

Owen often said that if Evelyn had two more notes in her voice she would have ranked with the finest. She sang from the low A, and she could take the high C. From B to B every note was clear and full, one as the other; he delighted especially in the middle of her voice; for one whole octave, and more than an octave, her voice was pure and sonorous and as romantic as the finest 'cello. And the romance of her voice transpired in the beautiful Beethoven-like phrase of Cherubini's "Ave Maria." It was as if he had had her voice singing in his ear while he was writing, when he placed the little grace notes on the last syllable of Maria. The phrase rose, still remaining well within the medium of her voice, and the same interval happened again as the voice swelled up on the word "plena." In the beautiful classical melody her voice was like a 'cello heard in the twilight. In the music itself there is neither belief nor prayer, but a severe dignity of line, the romance of columns and peristyle in the exaltation of a calm evening. Very gradually she poured her voice into the song, and her lips seemed to achieve sculpture. The lines of a Greek vase seemed to rise before the eye, and the voice swelled on from note to note with the noble movement of the bas-relief decoration of the vase. The harmonious interludes which Sister Mary John played aided the excitement, and the nuns, who knelt in two grey lines, were afraid to look up. In a remote consciousness they feared it was not right to feel so keenly; the harmonious depth of the voice entered their very blood, summoning visions of angel faces. But it was an old man with a white beard that Veronica saw, a hermit in the wilderness; she was bringing him vestments, and when the vision vanished Evelyn was singing the opening phrase, now a little altered on the words Santa Maria.

There came the little duet between the voice and the organ, in which any want of precision on the part of Sister Mary John would spoil the effect of the song; but the nun's right hand answered Evelyn in perfect concord. And then began the runs introduced in the Amen in order to exhibit the skill of the singer. The voice was no longer a 'cello, deep and resonant, but a lonely flute or silver bugle announcing some joyous reverie in a landscape at the close of day. The song closed on the keynote, and Sister Mary John turned from the instrument and looked at the singer. She could not speak, she seemed overpowered by the music, and like one more dreaming than waking, and sitting half turned round on her seat, she looked at Evelyn.

"You sing beautifully," she said. "I never heard singing before."

And she sat like one stupefied, still hearing Evelyn's singing in her brain, until one of the sisters advanced close and said, "Sister, we must sing the 'Tantum ergo.'"

"Of course we must. I believe if you hadn't reminded me I should have forgotten it. Gracious! I don't know what it will sound like after singing like that. But you'll lead them?"

Evelyn hummed the plain chant under her breath, afraid lest she should extinguish the pale voices, and surprised how expressive the antique chant was when sung by these etiolated, sexless voices. She had never known how much of her life of passion and desire had entered into her voice, and she was shocked at its impurity. Her singing sounded like silken raiment among sackcloth, and she lowered her voice, feeling it to be indecorous and out of place in the antique hymn. Her voice, she felt, must have revealed her past life to the nuns, her voice must have shocked them a little; her voice must have brought the world before them too vividly. For all her life was in her voice, she would never be able to sing this hymn with the same sexless grace as they did. Her voice would be always Evelyn Innes—Owen Asher's mistress.

The priest turned the Host toward them, and she saw the two long rows of grey-habited nuns leaning their veiled heads, and knew that this was the moment they lived for, the essential moment when the body which the Redeemer gave in expiation of the sins of the world is revealed. Evelyn's soul hushed in awe, and all that she had renounced seemed very little in this moment of mystery and exaltation.