gn Will.

It seemed to the nun, as Isabel talked, as if it needed just a final
touch of supreme tragedy to loosen and resolve all the complications; and
that this had been supplied by the vision upstairs. There she had seen a
triumphant trophy of another's sorrow and conquest. There was hardly an
element in her own troubles that was not present in that human Pieta
upstairs--treachery--loneliness--sympathy--bereavement--and above all the
supreme sacrificial act of human love subordinated to divine--human love,
purified and transfigured and rendered invincible and immortal by the
very immolation of it at the feet of God--all this that the son and
mother in their welcome of pain had accomplished in the crucifixion of
one and the heart-piercing of the other--this was light opened to the
perplexed, tormented soul of the girl--a radiance poured out of the
darkness of their sorrow and made her way plain before her face.

"My Isabel," said the old nun, when the girl had finished and was hiding
her face again, "this is of God. Glory to His Name! I must ask James'
leave; and then you must sleep here to-night, for the mass to-morrow."

* * * *

The chapel at Maxwell Hall was in the cloister wing; but a stranger
visiting the house would never have suspected it. Opening out of Lady
Maxwell's new sitting-room was a little lobby or landing, about four
yards square, lighted from above; at the further end of it was the door
into her bedroom. This lobby was scarcely more than a broad passage; and
would attract no attention from any passing through it. The only piece of
furniture in it was a great tall old chest as high as a table, that stood
against the inner wall beyond which was the long gallery that looked down
upon the cloister garden. The lobby appeared to be practically as broad
as the two rooms on either side of it; but this was effected by the outer
wall being made to bulge a little; and the inner wall being thinner than
inside the two living-rooms. The deception was further increased by the
two living-rooms being first wainscoted and then hung with thick
tapestry; while the lobby was bare. A curious person who should look in
the chest would find there only an old dress and a few pieces of stuff.
This lobby, however, was the chapel; and through the chest was the
entrance to one of the priest's hiding holes, where also the altar-stone
and the ornaments and the vestments were kept. Th