n anxious
fear of seeing the form that haunted her imagination; but her "ghost" did
not appear, and, after all, she scarcely knew whether she was relieved or
disturbed by his absence.

The next day, Monday, the abbess set diligent inquiries on foot to
discover whether the Duke of Hereward, or any other stranger of any name
or title whatever, had been seen in the neighborhood of St. Rosalie's
for many days. Winter was not the season for strangers there.

After this, the Duke of Hereward (or his ghost) was seen no more in the
chapel.

Every time Salome accompanied the sisterhood to the chapel, she peered
through the choir-screen, in much anxiety as to whether she should see
the duke, or his apparition, among the congregation below; but she
never saw him there again, nor could she decide, in the conflict between
her love and her sense of duty, whether she most desired or deplored his
absence.

So the days passed into weeks, and nothing more was heard or seen of the
Duke of Hereward.

The Christmas holidays came to an end after Twelth-Day; the pupils
returned to the school, and the academy buildings grew gay with the
exuberance of young life.

Salome, who, during many years of her childhood and youth, had shared
this bright and cheery school-life, now saw nothing of it.

The academy buildings, as has been explained before this, were situated
on the opposite side of the court-yard from the asylums and entirely cut
off from communication with them.

Salome, devoted to her duties in the Infants' Asylum, was more completely
secluded from the world than even the cloistered nuns themselves; for the
nuns were the teachers of the academy, and in daily communication with
their pupils and frequent correspondence with their patrons, saw and
heard much of the busy life without.

So the weeks passed slowly into months, and the winter into spring, yet
nothing more was seen or heard of the Duke of Hereward.

Salome lost the habit of looking for him, and gradually recovered her
tranquility. In the work to which she had consecrated herself--the care
of helpless and destitute infancy--she grew almost happy.

Already she seemed as dead to the world as though the "black vail" had
fallen like a pall over her head. No newspapers ever drifted into the
asylum, nor did any visitor come to bring intelligence of the good or
evil of the life beyond the convent walls.

Her year of probation was passing away. At its close she would take t