ed it, and
helped Unorna to get in. The place was very near, and neither spoke,
though he could feel her hand upon his arm. He made no attempt to shake
her off. At the gate they both got out, and he rang a bell that echoed
through vaulted passages far away in the interior.

"To-morrow," said Unorna, touching his hand.

He could see even in the dark the look of love she turned upon him.

"Good-night," he said, and in the next moment she had disappeared
within.

CHAPTER XVIII

Having made the necessary explanations to account for her sudden
appearance, Unorna found herself installed in two rooms of modest
dimensions, and very simply though comfortably furnished. It was quite a
common thing for ladies to seek retreat and quiet in the convent during
two or three weeks of the year, and there was plenty of available space
at the disposal of those who wished to do so. Such visits were indeed
most commonly made during the lenten season, and on the day when Unorna
sought refuge among the nuns it chanced that there was but one other
stranger within the walls. She was glad to find that this was the case.
Her peculiar position would have made it hard for her to bear with
equanimity the quiet observation of a number of woman, most of whom
would probably have been to some extent acquainted with the story of her
life, and some of whom would certainly have wished out of curiosity to
enter into nearer acquaintance with her while within the convent, while
not intending to prolong their intercourse with her any further. It
could not be expected, indeed, that in a city like Prague such a woman
as Unorna could escape notice, and the fact that little or nothing
was known of her true history had left a very wide field for the
imaginations of those who chose to invent one for her. The common story,
and the one which on the whole was nearest to the truth, told that she
was the daughter of a noble of eastern Bohemia who had died soon after
her birth, the last of his family, having converted his ancestral
possessions into money for Unorna's benefit, in order to destroy all
trace of her relationship to him. The secret must, of course, have
been confided to some one, but it had been kept faithfully, and Unorna
herself was no wiser than those who mused themselves with fruitless
speculations regarding her origin. If from the first, from the moment
when, as a young girl, she left the convent to enter into possession of
her fortune she had ch