er before. She has been obeyed
too much. And--and I think that if I stay I may be able--I may be some
good," she ended lamely.

Chris nodded.

"I understand," he said softly.

"Give me another week or two," said Beatrice, "I will do my best."

"You have worked a miracle with Meg," said Chris. "I believe you can
work another. I will not tell my father; and the others shall not
either."

* * * * *

A wonderful change had indeed come to Margaret during the last month.
Her whole soul, so cramped now by circumstances, had gone out in
adoration towards this stranger. Chris found it almost piteous to watch
her--her shy looks, the shiver that went over her, when the brilliant
figure rustled into the room, or the brisk sentences were delivered from
those smiling lips. He would see too how their hands met as they sat
together; how Margaret would sit distracted and hungering for attention,
eyeing the ceiling, the carpet, her embroidery; and how her eyes would
leap to meet a glance, and her face flush up, as Beatrice throw her a
soft word or look.

And it was the right love, too, to the monk's eyes; not a rival flame,
but fuel for divine ardour. Margaret spent longer, not shorter, time at
her prayers; was more, not less, devout at mass and communion; and her
whole sore soul became sensitive and alive again. The winter had passed
for her; the time of the singing-birds was come.

* * * * *

She was fascinated by the other's gallant brilliance. Religion for the
nun had up to the present appeared a delicate thing that grew in the
shadow or in the warm shelter of the cloister; now it blossomed out in
Beatrice as a hardy bright plant that tossed its leaves in the wind and
exulted in sun and cold. Yet it had its evening tendernesses too, its
subtle fragrance when the breeze fell, its sweet colours and
outlines--Beatrice too could pray; and Margaret's spiritual instinct, as
she knelt by her at the altar-rail or glanced at the other's face as she
came down fresh with absolution from the chair in the sanctuary where
the chaplain sat, detected a glow of faith at least as warm as her own.

She was astonished too at her friend's gaiety; for she had expected, so
far as her knowledge of human souls led to expect anything, a quiet
convalescent spirit, recovering but slowly from the tragedy through
which Margaret knew she had passed. It seemed to her at first as if
Beatrice