d with a thin cotton cord, her face, plain or
pretty, young or elderly, framed in the close little white drawn cap of
many tucks.

Then, the ladder having been removed, and the tarpaulin pulled over its
hole, the lights were extinguished, and only the subdued crimson glow of
the tiny lamp that burned before the silver Crucifix that had stood above
the Tabernacle on the altar of the Convent chapel burned ruby in the
thick, hot dark, where, upon the little iron beds, each divided by a
narrow, white-cotton-covered board into two constricted berths, the row of
quiet figures lay outstretched, her Breviary upon every Sister's pillow,
and her beads about her wrist.

The Mother lay very still, seeing the hideous sentences of the anonymous
letter written in hellish characters of mocking flame on the background of
the dark. She prayed as the wrecked may when the ship beneath their feet
is going down. Beside her Lynette, not daring to disturb the silence,
suddenly grown rigid and awful, lay aching with the loneliness of living
on the other side of the wide gulf of division that had suddenly yawned
between.

She had spent the day at the Hospital with Sister Hilda-Antony and Sister
Cleophee. She had not seen Beauvayse. But a note had come from him, that
had warmed the heart she hid it near. His dearest, he called her--his own
beautiful beloved. He could not snatch a minute from duty even to kiss his
darling's sweetest eyes, but on Sunday they would be together all day. And
would she not meet him at the Convent on Thursday, at twilight, when the
shelling stopped, and it would be safe for his beloved to venture there?
She must not come alone. Dear old Sister Tobias would bring her, and play
Mrs. Grundy's part. And, with a thousand kisses, he was hers in life and
death.

Lynette's first love-letter, and it seemed to her so beautiful. It laid a
hand upon her heart that thrilled, and was warm and strong. The hand said
"Mine!"

His. She would be his one day--soon; and there would be no more mysteries
between the man and the woman welded by God's ordinance into husband and
wife. She shivered a little at the thought of that intimate, peculiar,
utter oneness. And then, with a sickening, horrible sinking of the heart,
she realised that, however well such a secret as that she guarded might be
hidden before the priest and the clergyman made they twain One, it must be
known of both afterwards, or else be for ever threatening to start throug