dearly!"

Hubert was looking pale and stern. He had stopped short on the gravelled
pathway, half-way between the chapel and the entrance to the school. The
beauty, the interest of the place was lost upon him at once. He cared
only to hear what had become of the child whom he had fondly imagined
himself to be benefiting. If she had been unhappy, if she had run away
into the wide world on account of ill-treatment by her teachers and
fellow-pupils, was he not to blame? He ought to have come to the place
before and made inquiries, not left her fate to the light words of Mrs.
Rumbold or some unknown Sister Louisa. He had made himself responsible
for her education; was he not in some sort responsible for her happiness
as well?

These questionings made his face look very dark and grave as he stood
once more in the visitors' room, awaiting the arrival of the lady whom
Sister Agnes had called Sister Louisa, and whose letters to Mrs. Rumbold
he remembered that he had read.

He felt himself prejudiced against her before she arrived; but, when he
saw her, he was compelled to own that she had a very attractive
countenance. The face itself, framed in its setting of white and black,
was long and pale, but beautiful by reason of its sweetness of
expression; the gray eyes were full of tenderness, yet full of grief.
There were marks of tears upon her face--the only one that the visitor
had seen that was at all dolorous; and yet, noting her serene brow and
gentle lips, Hubert, man of the world as he was, and more ready to cavil
and despise than to admire, said to himself that, if any woman could
make a young girl love her, surely this woman would not fail!

"You wish," she said, "to ask some questions about our pupil Jane Wood?"

"I do indeed. I am very much surprised to hear that she has left you."

"May I ask whether you have any authority from our friend Mrs. Rumbold
to inquire?"

"Mrs. Rumbold takes her authority from me," said Hubert quietly.

Then, as the Sister looked at him with a little uncertainty in her mild
gray eyes, he felt in his pocket and drew out a pocket-book.

"I think I have a letter here from Mrs. Rumbold which will establish my
claim to make inquiries. It is a mere chance that I have not destroyed
it, but it is here, and will serve as my credentials perhaps."

Sister Louisa took the letter from his hand and looked at it. It was the
one which Mrs. Rumbold had written to Mr. Lepel when she had heard of
Jane