"

"Sister!" she repeated, with flashing eyes, and then crossed herself
humbly, muttering, "The evil spirit must not rise again. Help me,
Blessed Mother--good saints, help me!"

She told her rosary over once, twice, and then turned to Olive, subdued.

"Now say what you have to say to me. I told you I had no anger in my
heart--I even asked your forgiveness. I only desire to be left alone--to
spend the rest of my bitter life in penance and prayer."

"But I cannot leave you, my sister."

"I wish you would not call me so, nor take my hand, nor look at me as
you do now--as you did the first night I saw you, and again on that
awful, awful day!" And Christal sank back on one of the little beds--the
thornless pillow where some happy child slept--and there sobbed
bitterly.

More than once she motioned Olive away, but Olive would not go. "Do not
send me away! If you knew how I suffer daily from the thought of you!"

"You suffer! happy as they tell me you are--you, with your home and your
husband!"

"Ah, Christal, even my husband grieves--my husband, who would do
anything in the whole world for your peace. You have forgotten Harold."

A softness came over Christal's face. "No, I have not forgotten him. Day
and night I pray for him who saved more than my life--my soul. For that
deed may God bless him!--and God pardon me."

She said this, shuddering, too, as at some awful memory. After a while,
she spoke to Olive in a gentler tone, for the first time lifting her
eyes to her sister's face.

"You seem well in health, and you have a peaceful look. I am glad of
it--I am glad you are happy, and married to Harold Gwynne. He told me of
his love for you."

"But he could not tell you all. If I am happy, I have suffered too. We
must all suffer, some time; but suffering ends in time."

"Not with me--not with me. But I desire not to talk of myself."

"Shall I talk then about your friend Harold--your _brother_? He told
me to say he would ever be so to you," said Olive, striving to awaken
Christal's sympathies. And she partly succeeded; for her sister listened
quietly, and with some show of interest, while she spoke of Harold and
of their dear home.

"It is so near you, too; we can hear the convent bells when we walk in
our pretty garden. You must come and see it, Christal."

"No, no; I have rest here; I will never go beyond these walls. As
soon as I am twenty-one I shall become a nun, and then I, with all my
sorrows, will be