her head slowly, with an expression of angelic
sweetness, enhanced at the same time by the consciousness of her power
and dignity.

"Do you know this gentleman?" she asked, with a keen glance.

"Yes, Mother."

"Go back to your cell, my daughter!" said the Mother imperiously.

The General slipped aside behind the curtain lest the dreadful tumult
within him should appear in his face; even in the shadow it seemed to
him that he could still see the Superior's piercing eyes. He was afraid
of her; she held his little, frail, hardly-won happiness in her hands;
and he, who had never quailed under a triple row of guns, now trembled
before this nun. The Duchess went towards the door, but she turned back.

"Mother," she said, with dreadful calmness, "the Frenchman is one of my
brothers."

"Then stay, my daughter," said the Superior, after a pause.

The piece of admirable Jesuitry told of such love and regret, that a man
less strongly constituted might have broken down under the keen delight
in the midst of a great and, for him, an entirely novel peril. Oh! how
precious words, looks, and gestures became when love must baffle lynx
eyes and tiger's claws! Sister Theresa came back.

"You see, my brother, what I have dared to do only to speak to you for
a moment of your salvation and of the prayers that my soul puts up for
your soul daily. I am committing mortal sin. I have told a lie. How many
days of penance must expiate that lie! But I shall endure it for your
sake. My brother, you do not know what happiness it is to love in
heaven; to feel that you can confess love purified by religion, love
transported into the highest heights of all, so that we are permitted
to lose sight of all but the soul. If the doctrine and the spirit of
the Saint to whom we owe this refuge had not raised me above earth's
anguish, and caught me up and set me, far indeed beneath the Sphere
wherein she dwells, yet truly above this world, I should not have
seen you again. But now I can see you, and hear your voice, and remain
calm----"

The General broke in, "But, Antoinette, let me see you, you whom I love
passionately, desperately, as you could have wished me to love you."

"Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you. Memories of the past hurt me.
You must see no one here but Sister Theresa, a creature who trusts in
the Divine mercy." She paused for a little, and then added, "You must
control yourself, my brother. Our Mother would separate us withou