ill deem himself the most wretched soul on earth, and look about him for
the firm shore as a sailor does who is tossed about in a leaking ship at
sea? Then will he call to mind the past, his childhood and youth, his
pure love and yours. Then you yourself, you, Ann, will be the island
haven for which he will long. Then--aye, child, it is so, you will be the
only creature that may help him; and if you really crave to create
happiness--if your love is as true as--not so long ago--you declared it
to be, on your knees before me and with scalding tears, he, and not
Master Peter must be the first on whom you should carry out your
day-dreams--for I know not what other name to give to such vain
imaginings."

At this Ann sobbed aloud and wrung her hands, crying: "But he cast me
off, sold me for gold and silver. Can I, whom he has flung into the dust,
seek to go after him? Would it beseem an honest and shamefaced maid if I
called him back to me? He is happy--and he will still be happy for many
long, long years amid his reckless companions; if the time should ever
come of which you speak, most worshipful lady, even then he will care no
more for Ann, bloomless and faded, than for the threadbare bravery in
which he once arrayed himself. As for me and my love, warmly as it will
ever glow in my breast, so long as I live and breathe, he will never need
it in the life of pleasure in which he suns himself. It is no vain
imagining that I have made my goal, and if I am to bring joy to the
wretched I must seek others than he."

"Right well," said my aunt, "if so be that your love is no worthier nor
better than his."

And from the unhappy maid's bosom the words were gasped out: "It is
verily and indeed true and worthy and deep; never was truer love . . ."

"Never?" replied my aunt, looking at her enquiringly. "Have you not read
of the love of which the Scripture speaketh? Love which is able and ready
to endure all things."

And the words of the Apostle came into my mind which the Carthusian
sister had graven on our memories, burning them in, as it were, as being
those which above all others should live in every Christian woman's
heart; and whereas I had hitherto held back as beseemed me, I now came
forward and said them with all the devout fervor of my young heart, as
follows: "Charity suffereth long and is kind; Charity envieth not;
Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; seeketh not her own, is
not easily provoked, thinketh no e