looked more narrowly, to
make out the cause of this well-defined contrast appearing a little
suddenly in the obscure alley: whiter and blacker it grew on my eye: it
took shape with instantaneous transformation. I stood about three yards
from a tall, sable-robed, snowy-veiled woman.

Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still.
I spoke.

"Who are you? and why do you come to me?"

She stood mute. She had no face--no features: all below her brow was
masked with a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me.

I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate; and desperation will
often suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced
one step. I stretched out my hand, for I meant to touch her. She seemed
to recede. I drew nearer: her recession, still silent, became swift. A
mass of shrubs, full-leaved evergreens, laurel and dense yew,
intervened between me and what I followed. Having passed that obstacle,
I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I said,--"If you have any errand to
men, come back and deliver it." Nothing spoke or re-appeared.

This time there was no Dr. John to whom to have recourse: there was no
one to whom I dared whisper the words, "I have again seen the nun."

* * * * *

Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Crecy. In the old
Bretton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my
society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used
to notice that if I withdrew to my room, she would speedily come
trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her
little peremptory accent,--"Come down. Why do you sit here by yourself?
You must come into the parlour."

In the same spirit she urged me now--"Leave the Rue Fossette," she
said, "and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than
Madame Beck gives you."

Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum--thrice my present
salary--if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I
declined. I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was,
and with scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future
prospect. I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons;
but to be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to
me. Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would
deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of
gloves, swept bedroom