ll-balanced disposition as hers. Would it have been wise to
keep her back longer, because she seemed too perfect? Would it have been
just? Would it not, indeed, have been very wrong to risk discouraging
her, now that she was quite ready? She was almost twenty-one years old
and had taken no step hastily. More than two years and a half had passed
since she had entered the convent, and in all that time no one had been
able to detect the smallest fault in her, either of weakness or of
hastiness, still less of anything like the pride she might actually have
felt in her superiority. To keep her back now would be to accuse
perfection of being imperfect; it would be as irrational as to call
excellence a failing. More than that, it would have a bad effect on the
whole community, a danger which could not be overlooked.

Three years later, the Mother understood the warning doubt that had
assailed her; and when a precious life was in the balance she put
herself on trial before her judging conscience and the witness of her
memory. But though the judge was severe and the testimony unerring,
they acquitted her of all blame, and told her that she had acted for
the best, according to her light, on that memorable evening.

Within less than a month Angela took the veil in the convent church,
and thenceforth she was Sister Giovanna, for that was the name she
chose.

CHAPTER VIII

Five years after Giovanni Severi had left Rome to join the ill-fated
expedition in Africa, his brother Ugo obtained his captaincy and at
the same time was placed in charge of the powder magazine at
Monteverde, which Sister Giovanna could see in the distance from her
latticed window. The post was of considerable importance, but was not
coveted because it required the officer who held it to live at a
considerable distance from the city, with no means of getting into
town which he could not provide for himself; for there is no tramway
leading down the right bank of the Tiber. The magazine was actually
guarded by a small detachment of artillery under two subalterns who
took the night duty by turns, and both officers and men were relieved
at regular intervals by others; but the captain in command held his
post permanently and lived in a little house by himself, a stone's
throw from the gate of the large walled enclosure in which the low
buildings stood. For some time it had been intended to build a small
residence for the officer in charge, but this had not