Chalmers should continue to visit his
house after she had recovered. He had a hazy idea that the doctor's
triumph over his daughter's disease was the cause of the interest he
took in her. The preposterous thought that anyone should want to marry
Adele no more entered his imagination than would the idea of anyone
wanting to marry one of the dark-robed nuns at the convent.

Everyone in St. Jerome knew that she was to take the veil. If his wife
at times had fears, she never mentioned them to him.

And Adele? She was very happy. Like most French-Canadian women, she
was passionately attached to the Church. At times her happiness was
dimmed by the thought that she was not looking forward to taking the
veil with that eagerness that she had felt before her illness. She
comforted herself with the thought that the change, somehow, was the
result of her illness, and that by and by the old longings would
surely return. Why her heart should beat so when Doctor Chalmers
called, and what the meaning was of her looking so eagerly forward to
his visiting days, she never stopped to think.

The time of her awakening was at hand!

Had Adele's thoughts been less engrossed one afternoon, as she sat on
the porch, she would have noticed approaching the house, in the middle
of the narrow, dusty road that ran to the church, Father Sauvalle,
with his arm linked in that of her father's, both talking eagerly. The
priest's hand was on the latch of the gate before she raised her head;
her face lighted up, and she ran to meet them. The aged priest had
known her all her life, and patted her head with fatherly affection.
As they walked toward the house, he told her, impressively, that his
visit this time was solely on her account.

"Yes, solely on your account, solely on your account, blessed be the
Virgin!" broke in her father with strange ecstasy. She could not
account for the unhappy feeling which swept over her.

They went into the little parlor, where hung the great carved wooden
crucifix, which was said to be the most costly in the town, with the
exception of the one in the church.

Scarcely were they seated, when her father began to tell her the great
news. With eyes beaming with religious enthusiasm and pride, he told
her how Father Sauvalle had received a letter from the bishop, stating
that when the daughter of Hormisdas Frechette had taken the veil at
the convent at St. Jerome, the honor should be bestowed upon her of
being removed to