o'clock the door of her office opened, and to her surprise she
saw Monsignor Saracinesca standing before her, hat in hand. She could
not remember that she had ever seen him there before, but it was an
office, after all, and there was no reason why he should not come to
it if he had business with her. She rose to receive him. He shut the
door, which was the only one, bowed gravely, and took one of the two
spare rush-bottomed chairs and seated himself, before he spoke.

'The Mother Superior sent for me,' he said, 'and I have been with her
an hour. She has asked me to come to you. Are you at leisure?'

'Unless I am called. I am on duty.'

He noticed the muffled tone and the slowness of her speech. She sat
facing him, on the other side of the plain table, her open report-book
before her.

'You will not blame the Mother Superior for sending me, Sister. She is
in the deepest distress for you. You must have seen that, when you
spoke with her this morning.'

'She was more than kind.'

Monsignor Saracinesca sighed, but the nun did not notice it. Now that
she knew why he had come, she needed all her strength and courage
again.

He went on quietly with his short explanation. Mother Veronica had
told him of what had happened in the hall; he had known the rest long
ago from Sister Giovanna herself. That was the substance, and he
wasted no words. Then he paused, and she knew what was coming next,
for he would speak of a possible meeting; but how he would regard that
she could not guess, and she waited steadily for the blow if it was to
be one.

'The Mother Superior thinks that you should not see him,' he said.

'I know. She told me so.'

'I do not agree with her,' said Monsignor Saracinesca slowly.

The nun turned her face from the afternoon light, but said nothing;
with the greatest sacrifice of her life before her she should not feel
joy rising like the dawn in her eyes, at the mere thought of seeing
the man whose love she must renounce.

'We are human,' said the churchman, 'and our victories must be human,
to be worth anything. It was in His humanity that Christ suffered and
overcame. It is not victory to slink from the fight and shut oneself
up in a fortress that is guarded by others. Men and women must be good
men and women in this world if they hope to be saints hereafter, and
there is no such thing as inactive goodness.'

Sister Giovanna looked at him again, but still she did not speak.

'Though I am a pries