r!"

The Prioress asked when Mr. Innes had died.

"I can't remember, Mother; some time ago."

The Prioress asked if he were dead a week.

"Oh, more than that, more than that."

"And you have been in Rome ever since? Why did you not come here at
once?"

"Why, indeed, did I not come here?" was all Evelyn could say. She
seemed to lose all recollection, or at all events she had no wish to
speak, and sat silent, brooding. "Of what is she thinking?" the
Prioress asked herself, "or is she thinking of anything? She seems
lost in a great terror, some sin committed. If she were to confess to
me. Perhaps confession would relieve her." And the Prioress tried to
lead Evelyn into some account of herself, but Evelyn could only say,
"I am done for, Mother, I am done for!" She repeated these words
without even asking the Prioress to say no more: it seemed to her
impossible to give utterance to the terror in her soul. What could
have happened to her?"

"Did you meet, my child, either of the men whom you spoke to me of?"

The question only provoked a more intense agony of grief.

"Mother, Mother, Mother!" she cried, "I am done for! let me go, let
me leave you."

"But, my child, you can't leave us to-night, it is too late. Why
should you leave us at all?"

"Why did I ever leave you? But, Mother, don't let us talk any more
about it. I know myself; no one can tell me anything about myself; it
is all clear to me, all clear to me from the beginning; and now, and
now, and now--"

"But, my child, all sins can be forgiven. Have you confessed?"

"Yes, Mother, I confessed before I left Italy, and then came on here
feeling that I must see you; I only wanted to see you. Now I must
go."

"No, my child, you mustn't go; we will talk of this to-morrow."

"No, let us never talk of it again, that I beseech you, Mother;
promise me that we shall never talk of it again."

"As you like, as you like. Perhaps every one knows her own soul
best.... It is not for me to pry into yours. You have confessed, and
your grief is great."

The Prioress went back to her chair, feeling relieved, thinking it
was well that Evelyn had confessed her sin to some Italian priest who
did not know her, for it would be inconvenient for Father Daly to
know Evelyn's story. Evelyn could be of great use to them; it were
well, indeed, that she had not even confessed to her. She must not
leave the convent; and arriving at that conclusion, suddenly she rang
the bell. N