he question. Since her life had led her to nothing better
than smouldering resentment and sharp regret, it had not been the holy
life she had meant it to be--the failure she must score against herself
was a total one, a general defeat--and all that she had believed she
had been doing for the dead man's sake must count for nothing, since
she had not once been really in a state of grace.

No doubt her self-accusation went too far, as a confessor would have
told her, or even the Mother Superior, if that good and impulsive
woman had known what was in her mind. But Sister Giovanna did not
believe she could go far enough in finding fault with herself for such
great sins as her regret for a married life that might have been, and
her lasting anger against a person who had robbed her; and it was
while she was standing at her latticed window that morning that she
first thought of making an even more complete sacrifice by joining the
Sisters who intended to go out to the Rangoon leper hospital in the
spring.

It was not with the hope of dying young that she wished to go and face
death daily, but in the earnest desire to escape from what she called
her temptation, and to regain that peace of mind which had been hers
for a long time and now was gone. She had made for herself a little
treasure-house of grace laid up, to be offered for Giovanni's soul,
and the gold of her affliction and the jewels of her unselfish labours
had been gathered there to help him. That had been her simple and
innocent belief, but it had broken down suddenly as soon as she
discovered that she was only a human, resentful, regretful woman after
all, as far below the mystic detachment from the outward world as she
had been in those first days of her grief, at Madame Bernard's, when
she had sat listless all the day long, a broken-hearted girl. What she
had taken for gold and had stored up for Giovanni's welfare was only
the basest metal, her jewels were but chips of gaudy glass, her
sacrifice was a failure after all. Worse than that, her dead man came
back alive from his grave and haunted her in dreams, threatening
righteous judgment on the woman who had cheated her and him of earthly
happiness.

I shall not dwell on what she felt. Men and women who have honestly
tried to lead the good life for years and have suddenly realised that
they are as human as ever before, will understand what I have written.
The rest must either believe that it is true or, not belie