us.... I was on my way to join
Kaledines' Cossacks--a rendezvous.... Well, the Reds left me outside
the convent and went in to do their bloody work. And I gnawed the rope
and ran into the chapel to hide among the nuns. And there I saw a
White Nun--quite crazed with grief----"

"I had heard the volley that killed her," said Palla, in explanation,
to nobody in particular. She sat staring out across the snow with dry,
bright eyes.

Brisson looked askance at her, looked significantly at the Swedish
girl, Ilse Westgard: "And what happened then?" he inquired, with the
pleasant, impersonal manner of a physician.

Ilse said: "Palla had already begun her novitiate. But what happened
in those terrible moments changed her utterly.... I think she went mad
at the moment.... Then the Superior came to me and begged me to hide
Palla because the Bolsheviki had promised to return and cut her throat
when they had finished their bloody business in the crypt.... So I
caught her up in my arms and I ran out into the convent grounds. And
at that very moment, God be thanked, a sotnia of the Wild Division
rode up looking for me. And they had led horses with them. And we were
in the saddle and riding like maniacs before I could think. That is
all, except, an hour ago we saw your sleigh."

"You have been hiding with the Cossacks ever since!" exclaimed
Estridge to Palla.

"That is her history," replied Ilse, "and mine. And," she added
cheerfully but tenderly, "my little comrade, here, is very, very
homesick, very weary, very deeply and profoundly unhappy in the loss
of her closest friend... and perhaps in the loss of her faith in
God."

"I am tranquil and I am not unhappy,"--said Palla. "And if I ever win
free of this murderous country I shall, for the first time in my life,
understand what the meaning of life really is. And shall know how to
live."

"You thought you knew how to live when you took the white veil," said
Ilse cheerfully. "Perhaps, after all, you may make other errors before
you learn the truth about it all. Who knows? You might even care to
take the veil again----"

"Never!" cried Palla in a clear, hard little voice, tinged with the
scorn and anger of that hot revolt which sometimes shakes youth to the
very source of its vitality.

Ilse said very calmly to Estridge: "With me it is my reason and not
mere hope that convinces me of God's existence. I try to reason with
Palla because one is indeed to be pitied who has lost