horizon--and on board of her the Vicomte de Clericy. There was no
gainsaying it. I had seen him with my own eyes, but why had he done
this thing?

My shoulder throbbed painfully. I was sick at heart, and could not
bring my mind to bear upon any one subject. The cab-driver had
followed as far as he could, and now stood beckoning to me with his
whip. I went back, and bade him drive me to the hotel; for I had not
been in bed for three nights, and had a strong desire to get and
remain there until this great fatigue should at length leave me.

Of what followed I have but a dim recollection; indeed, remember
little from that time until I awoke in a bedroom at the Hotel de Genes
and found a gentle pink and white face, surrounded by a snowy cap,
bending over my bed.

"What time is it, and what day, my sister?" I asked, and was gently
commanded to hold my tongue. She gave me a spoonful of something with
no taste to it, without so much as asking me whether I wanted it.
Indeed, this gentle person treated me as a child, as, moreover, I
think women always treat such men as are wholly in their power.

"You must keep quiet," she said. "See, I will read to you!" and taking
a book from her pocket read aloud the Psalms in a cunning sing-song
voice that sent me to sleep.

When I awoke again the nun was still in the room, and, with her,
Sander, talking the most atrocious French. A queer contrast. One of
the world worldly, a moth that battened on the seamy side; the other
far above the wickedness of men.

"Hush!" I heard her say. "He is awake, and must not hear of your
affairs."

And she turned away from poor Sander, with his shrewd air, as from the
world and the iniquity thereof.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked at her placid back, which,
indeed, she gave him unceremoniously enough, with a hopeless contempt.
Womanhood had earned, it appeared, his profoundest scorn as
unbusinesslike and incompetent. Nunhood simply astounded him.

"Look here, my sister!" he said, plucking impatiently at her demure
sleeve, and even in my semi-consciousness I smiled at the sound of the
words from his cockney lips.

"Well?" she answered, turning her unruffled glance upon him.

Sander lowered his voice and talked hurriedly in her ear. But she only
shook her head. How small the things of this world are to those who
look with honest eyes beyond it!

"Well, I _must_ tell him--there!" exclaimed Sander, angrily, and he
made a step towards the bed