t ran: "Where the tree
falls, there it must lie."

Four days after Greta's departure from the house wherein she had been
received as a temporary boarder, the superior sat in the chapter room,
and a sister knelt at her feet. The sister's habit was gray and her
linen cape was plain. She wore no scapular, and no hood above the close
cap that hid her hair and crossed her forehead. She was, therefore, a
lay sister; she was Sister Grace.

"Mother, hear my sin," she said in a trembling whisper.

"Speak on, daughter."

"We were both at Athlone in the year of the great famine. He was an
officer in a regiment quartered there. I was a novice of the choir in
the Order of Charity. We met in scenes sanctified by religion. Oh,
mother, the famine was sore, and he was kind to the famished people!
'The hunger is on us,' they would cry, as if it had been a plague of
locusts. It was thus, with their shrill voices and wan faces, that the
ragged multitudes followed us. Yes, mother, he was very, very kind to
the people."

"Well?"

The penitent bowed her head yet lower. "My mother, I renounced the vows,
and--we were married."

The lips of the superior moved in silent prayer.

"What was his name, my daughter?"

"Robert Lowther. We came from Ireland to London. A child was born, and
we called him Paul. Then my husband's love grew chill and died. I
grieved over him. Perhaps I was but a moody companion. At last he told
me--"

The voice faltered; the whole body quivered.

"Well, my child?"

"Oh, mother, he told me I was not his wife; that I was a Catholic, but
that he was a Protestant; that a Catholic priest had married us in
Ireland without question or inquiry. That was not a valid marriage by
English law."

"Shame on the English law! But what do we know of the law at the foot of
the Cross? Well?"

"He left me. Mother, I flung God's good gift away. I tried to drown
myself, and my little child with me; but they prevented me. I was placed
in an asylum for the insane, and my baby--my Paul--was given into the
care of a woman with whom I had lodged. Have I not sinned deeply?"

"Your sins are great, my daughter, but your sufferings have also been
great. What happened then?"

"I escaped from the asylum and returned for my child. It was gone. The
woman had removed to some other part of London, none knew where, and my
Paul, my darling, was lost to me forever. My mother, it was then that I
sinned deepest of all."

Her head was bowed