r eight years. During that time there were many
changes at Watton. Our Prioress died; and a time of sore sickness
removed many of our Sisters. At the end of the eight years, only three
Sisters were left who could remember my punishment--it was more than I
have told"--ah, poor soul! lightly as she passed it thus, I dare be
bound it was--"and these, I imagine, knew not why it was. And at last
our confessor died.

"I thought I had utterly outlived my youthful dream. Roland had
disappeared as entirely as if he had never been. What had become of him
I knew not--not even if he were alive. I went about my duties in a
dull, wooden way, as an image might do, if it could be made to move so
as to sew or paint without a soul. Life was worth nothing to me--only
to get it over. My love was dead, or it was my heart: which I knew not.
Either came to the same thing. There were duties I disliked, and one
of these was confession: but I went through with them, in the cold, dull
way of which I spake. It had to be: what did it matter?

"One morrow, about a week after our confessor's death, my Lady Prioress
that then was told us at recreation-time that our new confessor had
come. We were commanded to go to him, ten in the day, and to make a
full confession from our infancy. My turn came on the second day. So
many of our elder Sisters had died or been transferred, that I was, at
twenty-five years, one of the eldest (beside the Mothers) left in the
house.

"I knelt down in the confessional, and repeated the Confiteor. Then, in
that stony way, I went on with my life-confession: the falsehood that I
had told when a child of eight, the obstinacy that I had shown at ten,
the general sins whereof I had since been guilty: the weariness of
divine things which ever oppressed me, the want of vocation that I had
always felt. I finished, and paused. He would ask me some questions,
of course. Let him get them over. There was silence for a moment. And
then I heard myself asked--`Is that all thou hast to confess?'--in the
voice I had loved best of all the world. My tongue seemed to cleave to
the roof of my mouth. I only whispered, `Roland!' in tones which I
could not have told for mine own.

"`I scarce thought to find thee yet here, Margaret,' he said. `I
well-nigh feared to do it. But after thy confession, I see wherefore
God hath sent me--that I may pour out into the dry and thirsty cup of
thine heart a little of that spiced win