impossible," I said as well as I could, for my very
lips were trembling.

I had been shaken to the depths of my soul by what the Reverend Mother
said, but remembering Martin's warning I now struggled to resist her.

"Two years ago, while I was living with my husband I tried to do that
and I couldn't," I said. "And if I couldn't do it then, when the legal
barrier stood between us, how can I do it now when the barrier is gone?"

After that I told her of all I had passed through since as a result of
my love for Martin--how I had parted from him when he went down to the
Antarctic; how I had waited for him in London; how I had sacrificed
family and friends and home, and taken up poverty and loneliness and
hard work for him; how I had fallen into fathomless depths of despair
when I thought I had lost him; and how joy and happiness had returned
only when God, in His gracious goodness, had given him back.

"No, no, no", I cried. "My love for Martin can never be overcome or
forgotten--never as long as I live in the world!"

"Then," said the Reverend Mother (she had been listening intently with
her great eyes fixed on my hot and tingling face), "then," she said, in
her grave and solemn voice, "If that is the case, my child, there is
only one thing for you to do--to leave it."

"Leave it?"

"Leave the world, I mean. Return with me to Rome and enter the convent."

It would be impossible to say how this affected me--how it shook me to
the heart's core--how, in spite of my efforts to act on my darling's
warning, it seemed to penetrate to the inmost part of my being and to
waken some slumbering instinct in my soul.

For a long time I sat without speaking again, only listening with a
fluttering heart to what the Reverend Mother was saying--that it was one
of the objects of the religious life to offer refuge to the tortured
soul that could not trust itself to resist temptation; and that taking
my vows as a nun to God would be the only way (known to and acknowledged
by the Church) of cancelling my vows as a wife to my husband.

"You will be a bride still, my child, but a bride of Christ. And isn't
that better--far better? You used to wish to be a nun, you know, and if
your father had not come for you on that most unhappy errand you might
have been one of ourselves already. Think of it, my child. The Mothers
of our convent will be glad to welcome you, if you can come as a willing
and contented Sister. And how can I leave you he