d realised the glory of the jewel
that had been snatched by the brutal hand of a thief. Ah, Lord! the pity
of it!

The pity of it! She, the stainless one, could have stripped off her own
white robe of virgin purity, had it been possible, to clothe the despoiled
young shoulders of Richard's daughter, cowering prostrate under her burden
of guiltless shame, crushed by the terrible knowledge that ruined
innocence must always pay the penalty, whether the destroyer is punished
or goes free.

The penalty! Suppose at the price of a lie from lips that had never lied
yet it could be evaded? The Mother's face contracted with a spasm of
mental pain. A dull flush mounted to her temples, and died out in olive
paleness; her lips folded closely, and her black brows frowned over the
sombre grey fires burning in their hollow caves. She rebuked a sinner at
that moment, and the culprit was herself.

She, the just mistress and wise ruler of so many Sisters in the religious
profession; she, so slow to judge and condemn others, was unsparing in
austerity towards herself. She had always recognised her greatest weakness
in her love for this adopted daughter that might have been her own if
Richard Mildare had not played traitor. She had never once yielded to the
clinging of those slight hands about her heart, but she had exacted
forfeit from herself, and rigorously. So much for excess of partiality, so
much for over-consideration, so much for lack of faith in over-anxiety, so
much more of late for the keen mother-jealousy that had quickened in her
to anguish at the thought that another would one day usurp her undivided
throne, and claim and take the lion's share of the love that had been all
hers. Her spiritual director was far too lenient, in her opinion. She was
all the more exacting towards herself. What right had a nun to be so bound
by an earthly tie? It was defrauding her Saviour and her Spouse to love
with such excess of maternal passion the child He had given. Yet she loved
on.

She reviewed all her shortcomings, even while the girl's head lay
helplessly against her, and the scalding tears that had at last begun to
gush from those shut, quivering eyelids wetted her breast. She had
esteemed and valued perfect candour above all things. And yet of what
concealments had she not been guilty in the shielding of this dearest
head?

She had deceived, for Richard's child, Richard's friend, in the deft
interweaving of fragmentary truths into