n you spare me a few minutes, mother? Will you come in and let me
talk to you a little while? Have you time? I want to talk to you. Oh!
I wish we had mother-confessors for women--for girls, I mean, instead of
father-confessors. Can you come in and let me talk to you, mother, for
a little while?"

"Surely, daughter," said the abbess, gently as with her own hand she
opened the door and led her votaress into the room.

Salome offered the one chair to the lady-superior, and then took the
foot-stool at her feet, and laid her head upon her knees.

"Now speak to me freely, child. Tell me what you wish and how I can help
you," said the abbess, kindly.

"Oh, mother! mother! I wish to be rid of the sin of loving him, for I
love him still. In spite of all, I love him still!" exclaimed Salome,
breaking down in a passion of tears and sobs.

The abbess laid her hands upon the bowed young head, and kept them so in
silence until the storm of grief had passed. Then she said:

"Child you must fast and pray, and so combat the 'inordinate and sinful
affections of the flesh.' Bethink you what you do in suffering them. You
make an idol of that monster of iniquity who was an accomplice in the
murder of your father--"

Salome uttered a low cry, and hid her face in her hands. The abbess went
on steadily, almost pitilessly:

"A man who, having already a living wife, of whom he had grown tired and
ashamed, married you, and so would have ruined you in soul and body."

Salome groaned deeply, and then suddenly broke forth in passionate
exclamations:

"I know it! I know it? I know it from the evidence of my own senses, no
less than from the testimony of others! I _know_ it, but I cannot _feel
it_, mother! I cannot feel it? My _mind_ adjudges him _guilty_; my _mind
condemns_ him upon unquestionable proof; but my _heart_ holds him
_guiltless_; in the face of all the proofs, my _heart acquits_ him! I
_know_ him to be a criminal; but I _feel_ him to be one of the greatest,
best and noblest of mankind! In spite of all I have heard and seen with
my own ears and eyes, corroborated by the testimony of others--in spite
of everything past, I _feel_, I _feel_ that if he should now come and
take my hand in his, and whisper to me, I should believe all that he
might tell me, and go with him whithersoever he might choose to lead me!
Mother, _save me from myself_!"

The abbess laid her hands again upon the throbbing head that lay on her
lap, as she answ