shame on me for being so deceived!'

Her voice rang like steel and the thrusts of her deadly reproach
pierced deep. He was on his feet, in the impulse of self-defence,
before she had half done, trying to silence her--he was at her side,
calling her by her name, but she would not hear him.

'No, I believed in you!' she went on. 'I trusted you! I loved you--but
I have loved a villain and believed a liar, and I am a prisoner under
a coward's roof!' Beseeching, he tried to lay his hand upon her
sleeve; she mistook his meaning. 'Take care!' she cried, and suddenly
the revolver was in her hand. 'Take care, I say! A nun is only a woman
after all!'

He threw himself in front of her in an instant, his arms wide out, and
as the muzzle came close against his chest, he gave the familiar word
of command in a loud, clear tone:

'Fire!'

Their eyes met, and they were both mad.

'If you despise me for loving you beyond honour and disgrace, then
fire, for I would rather die by your hand than live without you! I am
ready! Pull the trigger! Let the end be here, this instant!'

He believed that she would do it, and for one awful moment she had
felt that she was going to kill him. Then she lowered the weapon and
laid it on the chair beside her with slow deliberation, though her
hands shook so much that she almost dropped it. As if no longer seeing
him, she turned to the door, folded her hands on the panel, and leaned
her forehead against them.

He heard her voice, low and trembling:

'Forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that trespass against us!'

His own hand was on the revolver to do what she had refused to do. As
when the cyclone whirls on itself, just beyond the still storm-centre,
and strikes all aback the vessel it has driven before it for hours, so
the man's passion had turned to destroy him. But the holy words stayed
his hand.

'Angela! Forgive me!' he cried in agony.

The nun heard him, raised her head and turned; his suffering was
visible and appalling to see. But she found speech to soothe it.

'You did not know what you were saying.'

'I know what I said.'

He could hardly speak.

'You did not mean to say it, when you brought me here.' She was
prompting him gently.

'No.' He almost whispered the one word, and then he regretted it. 'I
hardly know what I meant to say,' he went on more firmly, 'but I know
what I meant to accomplish. That is the truth, such as it is. I saw
this afternoon that I should neve