for us in an
eternity of bliss and love, only asking for our love. These were the
wise ones, they thought of the essential and let the ephemeral and
circumstantial go by them. Even from a worldly point of view, their life
was the wiser, since it produced the greater happiness. Owen was a proof
of this. She remembered how he used to say he had the finest place, the
most beautiful pictures, and the most desirable mistress in Europe. Yet
he was always the unhappiest man she knew. His life had been an
unceasing effort to capture happiness, and he had failed because he had
sought happiness from without instead of seeking it from within. He
lived in externals, he was dependent on a multitude of things, the
breakdown of any one of which was sufficient to cause him the acutest
misery. The howl of a dog, the smell of a cigar, any trifle was
sufficient to wreck his happiness. He had taught her to live in external
things, to place her faith in the world instead of in her own
conscience. How unhappy she had been; she had been driven to the brink
of suicide. Ah, if it had not been for Monsignor. She bent her face on
her hands, and did not dare to think further.

When her prayer was finished, she listened to the high monotonous chant
of the nuns reciting Matins. It sank into her soul, soothing it, and at
the same time inspiring an ardent melancholy. The long, unbroken rhythm
flowed on and on, each side of the choir chanting an alternate verse. In
the dimness of her sensation, Evelyn lost count of time, nor did she
know of what she was thinking. She was suddenly awakened by a sound of
shuffling. The nuns had risen to their feet, and in the middle of the
floor a sister began the lessons in a shrill voice, keeping always on
the same note, never letting her voice fall at the close of the
sentences. Evelyn grew more interested; the rite was full of a
penetrating mystery. She viewed the lines of grey nuns and heard the
Latin syllables. These poor nuns whom she was just now pitying for their
ignorance of life could at all events read the Office in Latin.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

When she opened her eyes and saw the convent room, she remembered how
she had come there. Her still dreaming face lighted up with a smile, and
she began to wonder what was going to happen next. Soon after, someone
knocked. It was the little porteress telling her that it was seven
o'clock. Evelyn expected her to come in, pull up the blinds and pour out
her bat