e rocky ledges
of the vineyards below, and while the bell of the monastic church behind
us was ringing the Ave Maria, the far-off bell of the convent church at
Gonzano was answering from the other side of the lake--like angels
calling to each other from long distances in the sky.

"Mary," said the Reverend Mother, "I want to tell you a story. It is the
story of my own life--mine and my sister's and my father's."

I was sitting by her side and she was holding my hand in her lap, and
patting it, as she had done during the interview of the morning.

"They say the reason so few women become nuns is that a woman is too
attached to her home to enter the holy life until she has suffered
shipwreck in the world. That may be so with most women. It was not so
with me.

"My father was what is called a self-made man. But his fortune did not
content him. He wanted to found a family. If he had had a son this might
have been easy. Having only two daughters, he saw no way but that of
marrying one of us into the Italian nobility.

"My sister was the first to disappoint him. She fell in love with a
young Roman musician. The first time the young man asked for my sister
he was contemptuously refused; the second time he was insulted; the
third time he was flung out of the house. His nature was headstrong and
passionate, and so was my father's. If either had been different the
result might not have been the same. Yet who knows? Who can say?"

The Reverend Mother paused for a moment. The boy's voice in the vineyard
was going on.

"To remove my sister from the scene of temptation my father took her
from Rome to our villa in the hills above Albano. But the young musician
followed her. Since my father would not permit him to marry her he was
determined that she should fly with him, and when she hesitated to do so
he threatened her. If she did not meet him at a certain hour on a
certain night my father would be dead in the morning."

The Reverend Mother paused again. The boy's voice had ceased; the
daylight was dying out.

"My sister could not bring herself to sacrifice either her father or
her lover. Hence she saw only one way left--to sacrifice herself."

"Herself?"

The Reverend Mother patted my hand. "Isn't that what women in tragic
circumstances are always doing?" she said.

"By some excuse--I don't know what--she persuaded our father to change
rooms with her that night--he going upstairs to her bedroom in the
tower, and she to