r
your soul daily. I am committing mortal sin. I have told a lie. How many
days of penance must expiate that lie! But I shall endure it for your
sake. My brother, you do not know what happiness it is to love in
heaven; to feel that you can confess love purified by religion, love
transported into the highest heights of all, so that we are permitted
to lose sight of all but the soul. If the doctrine and the spirit of
the Saint to whom we owe this refuge had not raised me above earth's
anguish, and caught me up and set me, far indeed beneath the Sphere
wherein she dwells, yet truly above this world, I should not have
seen you again. But now I can see you, and hear your voice, and remain
calm----"

The General broke in, "But, Antoinette, let me see you, you whom I love
passionately, desperately, as you could have wished me to love you."

"Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you. Memories of the past hurt me.
You must see no one here but Sister Theresa, a creature who trusts in
the Divine mercy." She paused for a little, and then added, "You must
control yourself, my brother. Our Mother would separate us without pity
if there is any worldly passion in your face, or if you allow the tears
to fall from your eyes."

The General bowed his head to regain self-control; when he looked up
again he saw her face beyond the grating--the thin, white, but still
impassioned face of the nun. All the magic charm of youth that once
bloomed there, all the fair contrast of velvet whiteness and the colour
of the Bengal rose, had given place to a burning glow, as of a porcelain
jar with a faint light shining through it. The wonderful hair in which
she took such pride had been shaven; there was a bandage round her
forehead and about her face. An ascetic life had left dark traces about
the eyes, which still sometimes shot out fevered glances; their ordinary
calm expression was but a veil. In a few words, she was but the ghost of
her former self.

"Ah! you that have come to be my life, you must come out of this tomb!
You were mine; you had no right to give yourself, even to God. Did you
not promise me to give up all at the least command from me? You may
perhaps think me worthy of that promise now when you hear what I have
done for you. I have sought you all through the world. You have been in
my thoughts at every moment for five years; my life has been given to
you. My friends, very powerful friends, as you know, have helped with
all their mi