and generous. Prayers as
pure as yours could not be unheard."

"No prayers are unheard, though all are not granted."

She made the slight gesture with her large, beautiful hand that put
unnecessary speech from her, and let the hand drop again by her side. Her
bosom rose and fell quietly with her even speaking. None could have
guessed the tumult within, and the doubts and convictions and
apprehensions that battled together, and the religious fears and scruples
that rent and tore her suffering soul. But for the sake of Richard's
daughter she rallied her grand forces, and nerved herself to carry out her
hated task.

"I will tell you how I came to be interested in the young lady who is now
my adopted daughter, and whom you know as Lynette Mildare. At the end of
the winter of 18-- the Reverend Mother of our Convent died, and I was sent
up from the Mother-House at Natal, by order of the Bishop, to take her
place as Superior. Two Sisters came with me. It was the usual slow journey
of many weeks. The wet season had begun. Perhaps that was why we did not
encounter many other waggons on the way. But one party of emigrants of the
labouring class--we never really learned where bound--trekked on before
us, and generally outspanned within sight. There were three rough
Englishmen--two middle-aged and one quite old--a couple of tawdry women,
and a young girl. They used to ill-treat the girl. We heard her crying
often, and one of the Kaffir voor-loopers of their two waggons told a Cape
boy who was in our service that the old Baas would kill the little white
thing one of these days. She was used as a drudge by them all--a servant,
unpaid, ill-fed, worse-clothed than the Kaffirs--but the old man,
according to our informant, bore her a special grudge, and lost no
opportunity of wreaking his malice on her."

"I understand," he said. She went on:

"We would have helped the child if we could have reached her; but it was
not possible. If she had run away and taken refuge with us, and the men
had followed her, I do not think we should have given her up for any
threats of theirs, or even for threats carried out in action."

"I know you never would have."

She made the slight gesture with her hand that put all inferred praise
aside.

"The waggons of the emigrants were no longer in sight, one morning when
we inspanned. They had headed south as if for the Diamond Mines, and we
were trekking west...." There was a slight hesitation, and her