asily be made
to understand it, and even taught to use it. What we call the soul may
be infinite or infinitesimal, or finite, or it may be the Hegelian
Nothing, which is Pure Being under another name; whatever it is, our
acquaintance with it is not knowledge of it, since whatever we can
find out about it is based on the Criticism exercised by Pure Reason
and not on experience; and the information which Pure Reason gives us
about the soul is not categorical but antinomial; and by the time
medicine gets into these transcendental regions, consciously or
unconsciously, it ceases to be of much practical use in curing
'pernicious anaemia' or any similarly obscure disease.

All this digression only explains why Angela was a better nurse in
surgical cases than in ordinary illnesses after she had been two years
in training; but that circumstance is connected with what happened to
her later, as will be clear in due time.

In most respects she changed very little, so far as any one could see.
No one in the convent knew how she hoped against all reason, during
those two years, that Giovanni might yet be heard of, though there was
not the least ground for supposing that he could have escaped when all
the others had perished; and indeed, while she still hoped, she felt
that it was very foolish, and when she had a long talk with Monsignor
Saracinesca before taking the veil, she did not even speak of such a
possibility.

She had long ago decided that she would take the veil at the
expiration of the two years, but she wished to define her position
clearly to the three persons whom she cared for and respected most.
These were Madame Bernard, Monsignor Saracinesca, and the Mother
Superior, whose three characters were as different as it would have
been possible to pick out amongst the acquaintance of a lifetime.

Angela asked permission to go with Madame Bernard to the cemetery of
San Lorenzo, where a monument marked the grave of those who had fallen
in the expedition. It was a large square pillar of dark marble,
surmounted by a simple bronze cross. On the four sides there were
bronze tablets, on which were engraved the names of the officers and
men, and that of Giovanni Severi was second, for he had been the
second in command.

No one was near and Angela knelt down upon the lowest of the three
steps that formed the base. After a moment Madame Bernard knelt beside
her. The novice's eyes were fixed on the bronze tablet and her lips
d