nd and the
fountains under her eyes, she looked towards Kensington. There an
iridescent sky floated like a bubble among the autumn-tinted trees. She
was then thinking of her music and her friends; she hardly knew of what
she was thinking, when a thought so clear that it sounded like a bell
spoke within her, and it said that the things of which she was thinking
were as nothing, and that Life was but a little moment compared with
Eternity, and she seemed to see into the final time which lay beyond the
grave. "There and not here are the true realities," said the voice, and
she got up and walked hurriedly down the hillside, fearing lest the
fierce conflict of conscience should begin again in her. She walked as
fast as she was able, hoping to extinguish in action the conscience
that she dreaded, but she was weak and almost helpless, and had to pause
to rest. She stood, one hand on the balustrade, not daring to turn her
head lest she should see the spire of the Kensington Church.

She walked across the gardens, through the great groves, and sat down.
The grass was worn away about the roots of the trees and through the
gnarled trunks she could see the keeper's cottage covered with reddened
creeper. Perhaps it was the calm and seclusion that called her thoughts
to the convent garden, and she reflected that if she had not accepted
the nuns' invitation to tea, her life might have continued without
deviation. She was impressed with the slightness of the thread on which
our destiny hangs, and then by the inevitableness of our lives. We
perceive the governing rule only when we look back. The present always
seems chaos, but when we look back, we distinguish the reason of every
action, and we recognise the perfect fulfilment of what must be. Her
visit to the convent--how little it was when looked at from one side,
when looked at from another how extraordinary! If she had known that
Monsignor was going to ask her to go there, she would have invented a
plausible excuse, but she had had no time to think; his kind eyes were
fixed upon her, and he seemed so ready to believe all she said, that her
courage sank within her, and she could not lie to him. Perhaps all this
was by intention, by the very grace of God! The Virgin might have
interceded on her behalf, for is it not said that whoever wears the
scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel cannot lose his soul? But for the
last two years, for more than two years, she has not worn her scapular.