is that we know everything, only we have not acquired the
art of saying it. Had she not always known that her destiny was not with
Owen, that he was but a passing, not the abiding event of her life? She
looked through the convent room, and the abiding event of her life now
seemed to murmur in her ear, seemed to pass like a shadow before her
eyes. At the moment when she thought she was about to hear and see, a
knock came at her door, and the revelation of her destiny passed, with a
little ironical smile, out of her eyes and ears.

Her visitor was a strange little nun whom she had not seen before. Over
her slim figure the white serge habit fell in such graceful, mediaeval
lines as Evelyn had seen in German cathedrals; and her face was delicate
and childlike beneath the white forehead band. She came forward with a
diffident little smile.

"Reverend Mother sent me to you; she is watching now, or she would have
come herself, but she thought you might like me to take you round the
garden. She will join us there when she comes out of church. But
Reverend Mother said you must do just as you liked."

The little nun corresponded to her mood even as the book had done; she
seemed an apparition, a ghost risen from its pages. Her face was a thin
oval, and the purity of the outline was accentuated by the white
kerchief which surrounded it. The nose was slightly aquiline, the chin
a little pointed, the lips well cut, but thin and colourless--lips that
Evelyn thought had never been kissed, and that never would be kissed.
The thought seemed disgraceful, and Evelyn noticed hastily the dark
almond eyes that saved the face from insipidity; the black eyebrows were
firmly and delicately drawn, her complexion, without being pale, was
extraordinarily transparent, and the thin hands and long, narrow
fingers, half hidden beneath the long sleeves, were in the same idea of
mediaeval delicacy.

"I was longing to go out, but I had not the courage. I feared it might
be against the rule for me to go into the garden alone. But tell me
first who you are."

"Oh, I'm Sister Veronica. I'm only a novice as yet."

Evelyn noticed that, unlike the other nuns she had seen, Sister Veronica
wore neither the silver heart on her breast, suspended by a red cord,
nor the long straight scapular which gave such dignity to the religious
habit. Her habit was held in at the waist by a leather girdle; it looked
as though it might slip any moment over the slight, boyis