be considered at all. You
understand that, do you not?'

'Is it possible that you yourself do not yet understand?' Sister
Giovanna asked, as quietly as she could. 'Did I not tell you to-day
that no power could loose me from my vows?'

'You were mistaken. There is a power that can, and that rests with the
Pope, and he shall exercise it.'

'I will not ask for a dispensation. I have told you that it is an
impossibility----'

'There is no such thing as impossibility for men and women who love,'
Giovanni answered. 'Have you forgotten the last words you said to me
before I sailed for Africa?' He spoke gently now, and Sister Giovanna
turned her face from him. 'You said, "I will wait for you for ever."
Do you remember?'

'Yes. I remember.'

'Did you "wait for ever," Angela?'

She looked at him again, and then came forward a little, drawn by an
impulse she could not resist.

'Did I love another man, that you reproach me?' she asked. 'Such as my
life has been, have I lived it as a woman lives who has forgotten? I
know I have not. Yes, Giovanni, I have waited, but as one waits who
hopes to meet in heaven the dear one who is dead on earth. Do you
still find fault with me? Would you rather have had me go back to the
world and to society after mourning you as long as a girl of nineteen
could mourn for a man to whom she had not been openly engaged? Was I
wrong? If you had really been dead and could have seen me, would you
have wished that I were living differently?'

For a moment he was moved and held out one hand towards her, hoping
that she would come nearer.

'No,' he answered--'no, dear----'

'But that was the only question,' she said earnestly, 'and you have
answered it!'

She would not take his hand and Giovanni dropped his own with a
gesture of disappointment.

'No,' he replied, in a colder tone, 'it is not the question, for you
have not told me all the truth. If I had not been gone five years, if
I had come back the day before you took the last vows, would you have
taken them?'

'No, indeed!'

'If I had come the very next day after, would you not have done your
best to be set free?'

There was an instant's pause before she spoke; then the answer came,
clear and distinct.

'No.'

Severi turned from her with an impatient movement of his compact head,
and tapped the carpeted floor with his heel. His answer broke from his
lips harshly.

'You never loved me!'

She would have done wisely if she had bee