concealed it, were as wax upon it, not a
cerement. That which fell shapeless and heavily from the shoulders of
the others, upon her seemed to grow rather from the waist--to creep
upwards over the shoulders, as ivy steals clinging over a statue in a
park. Here, said he, is a maiden that cannot be hid. Call her a
murderess, she remains perfect woman; call her convict, Magdalen, she
is some man's solace. He looked: at Gil Perez, motionless and intent
by his side, and heard his short breath: There is her mate, he thought
to himself, and was saved.

They filed out as they had come in. They all stood, turned towards the
exit, and waited until they were directed to move. Then they followed
each other like sheep through a gateway, looking, so far as he could
see, at nothing, expecting nothing, and remembering nothing. A
down-trodden herd, he conceived them, their wits dulled by toil. He
was not near enough to see the gleam which kept them alive. Nuns gave
them their orders with authoritative hands, quick always, and callous
by routine, probably not intended to be so harsh as they appeared. He
saw one girl pushed forward by the shoulder with such suddenness that
she nearly fell; another flinched at a passionate command; another
scowled as she passed her mistress. He watched to see how Manuela, who
had come in one of the first and must go out one of the last, would
bear herself, and was relieved by a pretty and enheartening episode.

Manuela, as she passed, drew her hand along the top of the bench with a
lingering, trailing touch. It encountered that of the nun in command,
and he saw the nun's hand enclose and press the penitent's. He saw
Manuela's look of gratitude, and the nun's smiling affection; he
believed that Manuela blushed. That gratified him extremely, and
enlarged his benevolent intention.

Had Gil Perez seen it? He thought not. Gil Perez' black eyes were
fixed upon Manuela's form. They glittered like a cat's when he watches
a bird in a shrubbery. The valet was quite unlike himself as he
followed his master homewards and asked leave of absence for the
evening--for the first time in his period of service. Manvers had no
doubt at all how that evening was spent--in rapt attention below the
barred windows of the House of the Recogidas.

That was so. Gil Perez "played the bear," as they call it, from dusk
till the small hours--perfectly happy, in a rapture of adoration which
the Squire of Somerset co