d herself to Heaven. Your road is marked out for you, child,
reflect on this. To-morrow-no, the day after, I will see you and guide
you in the new path."
At these words Joanna turned pale. She now understood what the bishop's
purpose was in calling on her. At the bottom of the stairs, she threw
her arms round the child and asked her in--a low voice: "Do you pine for
the cloister--do you wish to go away from us like your mother, to think
of nothing but saving your soul, to live a nun in the holy seclusion
which Pulcheria has described to you so often?"
But this the child positively denied; and as Joanna's head drooped
anxiously and sadly, Mary looked up brightly and exclaimed: "Never fear,
Mother dear! Things will have altered greatly by the day after tomorrow.
Let the bishop come! I shall be a match for him!--Oh! you do not know me
yet. I have been like a lamb among you through all this misfortune and
serious trouble; but there is something more in me than that. You will
be quite astonished!"
"Nay, nay. Remain what you are," the widow said.
"Always and ever full of love for you and Pul. But I am a grand and
trusted person now! I have something very important to do for Orion
to-morrow. Something--Rustem will go with me.--Important, very
important, Mother Joanna. But what it is I must not tell--not even you!"
Here she was interrupted, for the heavy prison door opened for their
exit.
It was many hours before it was again unlocked to let out the bishop, so
long was he detained talking to Paula in her cell.
To his enquiry as to whether she was an orthodox Greek, or as the common
people called it, a Melchite, she replied that she was the latter;
adding that, if he had come with a view to perverting her from the
confession of her forefathers, his visit was thrown away; at the same
time she reverenced him as a Christian and a priest; as a learned man,
and the friend whom her deceased uncle had esteemed above every other
minister of his confession; she was gladly ready to disclose to him all
that lay on her soul in the face of death. He looked into the pure,
calm face; and though, at her first declaration, he had felt prompted to
threaten her with the hideous end which he had but just done his utmost
to avert, he now remembered the Greek widow's request and bound himself
to keep silence.
He allowed her to talk till midnight, giving him the whole history of
all she had known of joy and sorrow in the course of her
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