earnest?"

The shocked tone and the scandalised disgust on Greta's pretty face stung
and hurt. But Lynette went on:

"I speak the truth. The Mother and the Sisters, who have always known it,
have kept the secret. In their great considerate kindness, they have never
once let me feel there was any difference between me and the other
girls--not once in all these years. And I can never thank them
enough--never be grateful enough for their great goodness--especially
_hers_." The steady voice shook a little.

"We all know that you have always been the Mother's favourite." There was
a little cool inflection of contempt in Greta's high, sweet, birdlike
tones that had been lacking before. "And she is the niece of a great
English Cardinal, and the sister of a Duchess and a Princess, and her
step-brother is an Earl." The inflection added for Greta: "_And yet she
turns to the charity child!_"

Lynette said in a low voice:

"It is because she is perfect in the way of humility. She is beyond all
pride ... greater than all prejudice ... she has been more to me than I
can say, since she and Sister Ignatius and Sister Tobias found me on the
veld seven years ago, when they were trekking up from Natal to join the
Sisters who were already working here."

Greta's face dimpled, and the bright, cold eyes grew greedy again. There
was a romance, after all.

"My gracious! How did you get there? Did your people lose you, or had you
run away from home?"

The delicate wild-rose colour sank out of Lynette's cheeks. Her eyes sank
under those bold, curious, blue ones of Greta's. She said, with a painful
effort:

"I--had run away from the place that was called my home. I don't remember
ever having lived anywhere else before."

"My! And ...?"

"It was a--dreadful place." A little convulsive shudder rippled through
the girl's slight frame. Little points of moisture showed upon the
delicate white temples, where clung the little stray rings and tendrils of
the red-brown hair. "I wore worse rags than the children at the native
kraals, and was worse fed. I scrubbed floors, and fetched water, and was
beaten every day. Then"--she drew a deep, quivering breath--"I ran
away--and--and ran until I could run no more, and fell down.... I don't
remember being picked up. I woke up one day here at the Convent; and I was
in bed, and my hair was cut short, and there was ice upon my head. I said,
'Where am I?' and the Mother-Superior stooped down and looked