d the omission of the paging, and spoke of
that. In answer she took up the manuscript she had written and paged
every sheet. After this my progress was halting and uneven.
Involuntarily my mind kept on devising plans for making that woman speak
or turn her face toward me. If she would do the latter, I would be
satisfied; and even if she proved to be an unveiled prophetess of
Khorassan, there would be no further occasion for conjectures and
wonderings, and I could go on with my work in peace. But it made me
nervous to remain silent, and see that nun sitting there, pen in hand,
but motionless as a post, and waiting for me to give her the signal to
continue the exercise of the principle to which her existence was now
devoted.

I went on with my dictation. I had left Marseilles, had touched slightly
upon Nice, and was now traveling by carriage on the Cornice Road to
Mentone. "It was on this road," I dictated, "that an odd incident
occurred to me. We were nearly opposite the old robber village of"--and
then I hesitated and stopped. I could not remember the name of the
village. I walked up and down my study, rubbing my forehead, but the
name would not recur to me. I was just thinking that I would have to go
to the library and look up the name of the village, when from out of the
depths of the nun's bonnet there came a voice, low but distinct, and, I
thought, a little impatient, and it said, "Eza."

"Eza! of course!" I exclaimed,--"certainly it is Eza! How could I have
forgotten it? I am very much obliged to you for reminding me of the name
of that village. Perhaps you have been there?"

In answer to this question I received the least little bit of a nod, and
the nun's pen began gently to paw the paper, as if it wanted to go on.

I was now really excited. She had spoken. Why should I not do something
which should make her turn her face toward me,--something which would
take her off her guard, as my forgetfulness had just done? But no idea
came to my aid, and I felt obliged to begin to dictate the details of
the odd incident, when suddenly the door opened, Sister Sarah walked in,
and the morning's work was over.

I had not done much, but I had made that nun speak. She said "Eza." That
was a beginning, and I felt confident that I should get on very well in
time. I was a little sorry that my secretary had been on the Cornice
Road. I fancied that she might have been one of those elderly single
women who become Baedeker touris