," said the director within.

But when she had lifted the latch and pushed back the door, squeaking
on its wooden hinges, Tabea found that Friedsam was engaged in some
business with the prior of the convent, the learned Dr. Peter Miller,
known at Ephrata as Brother Jabez. Friedsam did not at first look up.
The delay embarrassed her; she had time to see, with painful clearness,
all the little articles in the slenderly furnished room. She noticed
that the billet of wood which lay for a pillow, according to the
Ephrata custom, on a bare bench used for a bed, was worn upon one side
with long use; she saw how the bell rope by means of which Friedsam
called the brethren and sisters to prayers at any hour in the night,
hung dangling near the bench, so that the bell might be pulled on a
sudden inspiration even while the director was rising from his wooden
couch; she noted the big books; and then a great reverence for his
piety and learning fell upon her, and a homesick regret; and Scheible
and the wedding frolic did not seem so attractive after all.
Nevertheless she held up her head like a defiant Hofcavalier.

After a time Brother Jabez, with a kind greeting, passed her, and the
director, looking up, said very gently:

"I wish you a very good day, Sister Tabea."

"I am no longer Sister Tabea, but Margaretha Thome. I have said adieu
to all in Sharon, and now I come to say good-by to Brother Friedsam. I
am going to lay aside these garments and marry Daniel Scheible."

She held out her hand, but Friedsam was too much stunned to see it.

"You have broken your vow! You have denied the Lord!"

There was no severity in his despondent rebuke; it had the vibration of
an involuntary cry of surprise and pain.

Tabea was not prepared for this. Severity she could have defied; but
this cry of a prophet awakened her own conscience, and she trembled as
if she had been in the light of a clear-seeing divine judgment.

"You can speak so, Brother Friedsam, for you have no human weaknesses.
I am not suited to a convent; I never can be happy here. I am not
submissive. I want to be necessary to somebody. Nobody cares for me
here. You do not mind whether I sing in the chorals or not, and you
will be better pleased to have me away, _and I am going_." Then,
finding that the director remained silent, she said, with emotion:
"Brother Friedsam, I have a great reverence for you, but I wish you
knew something of the infirmities of a heart that want