what can
never be, it will hinder you. More than that I cannot say.'

'I look forward,' Angela answered confidently. 'I pray and I hope.'

'If you are sure of that, you are safe,' said Monsignor Saracinesca.
'No one but yourself can know.'

'I began to work here hoping and praying that if I could do any good
at all it might help him, wherever he is,' Angela went on. 'That is
the only vocation I ever felt, and now I wish to take the veil because
I think that as a professed nun I may be able to use better what
little I have learned in two years and a half than if I stay on as a
lay sister. It is not for myself, except in so far as I know that the
only way to help him is to do my best here. As I hope that God may be
merciful to him, so I hope that God will accept my work, my prayers,
and my faith.'

The prelate looked at the delicate face and earnest eyes, and the
quietly spoken words satisfied him and a little more. There could be
nothing earthly in such love as that, he was sure, and such simple
faith would not be disappointed. It was not the first time in his
experience as a priest that he had known and talked with a woman from
whom sudden death had wrenched the man she loved, or whom inevitable
circumstances had divided from him beyond all hope of reunion; but he
had never heard one speak just as Angela spoke, nor seen that look in
another face. He was convinced, and felt that he could say nothing
against her intention.

But she herself was not absolutely sure even then, and she went to the
Mother Superior that evening to ask her question for the last time.
The Mother was seated at her writing-table, and one strong electric
lamp shed its vivid light from under a perfectly dark shade upon the
papers that lay under her hand and scattered before her--bills,
household accounts, doctors' and nurses' reports, opened telegrams,
humble-looking letters written on ruled paper and smart notes in
fashionable handwritings. People who imagine that the Mother Superior
of a nursing order which has branches in many parts of the world
spends her time in meditation and prayer are much mistaken.

'Sit down,' said the small white volcano, without looking up or
lifting her thin forefinger from the column of figures she was
checking.

The room would have been very dark but for the light which the white
paper reflected upwards upon the nun's whiter face, and into the dark
air. Angela sat down at a distance as she was bidden, and wai