must be almost heartless, so little did she flinch when Lady
Torridon darted Ralph's name at her, or Master More's, or flicked her
suddenly where the wound ought to be; and it was not until the guest had
been a month in the house that the nun understood.

They were together one evening in Margaret's own white little room above
the oak parlour. Beatrice was sitting before the fire with her arms
clasped behind her head, waiting till the other had finished her office,
and looking round pleased in her heart, at the walls that told their
tale so plainly. It was almost exactly like a cell. A low oak bed,
red-blanketted, stood under the sloping roof, a prie-dieu beside it, and
a cheap little French image of St. Scholastica over it. There was a
table, with a sheet of white paper, a little ink-horn and two quills
primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small
bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private
devotions that appealed to her. A pair of beads hung on a nail by the
window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks
with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint
resemblance to an altar. The boards were bare except for a strip of
matting by the bed; and the whole room, walls, floor, ceiling and
furniture were speckless and precise.

Margaret made the sign of the cross, closed her book, and smiled at
Beatrice.

"You dear child!" she answered.

Margaret's face shone with pleasure; and she put out her hand softly to
the other's knee, and laid it there.

"Talk to me," said the nun.

"Well?" said Beatrice.

"Tell me about your life in London. You never have yet, you know."

An odd look passed over the others face, and she dropped her eyes and
laid her hands together in her lap.

"Oh, Meg," she said, "I should love to tell you if I could. What would
you like to hear?"

The nun looked at her wondering.

"Why--everything," she said.

"Shall I tell you of Chelsea and Master More?"

Margaret nodded, still looking at her; and Beatrice began.

It was an extraordinary experience for the nun to sit there and hear
that wonderful tale poured out. Beatrice for the first time threw open
her defences--those protections of the sensitive inner life that she had
raised by sheer will--and showed her heart. She told her first of her
life in the country before she had known anything of the world; of her
father's friendship with More when she