Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/144

 He never told what passed between him and the Mother Superior at their meeting the following Friday, but he came away with some thing more than respect in his heart for that woman with a cloister's purity. He returned to the convent an hour later, his patient with him.

"She is very low," he said, "and only semi-conscious. But she knows you are taking her in. She has kept herself alive through the journey, by sheer, indomitable will, for this alone. You spoke of her receiving the last sacraments. I think you should send for a priest at once."

The Convent Girl heard him, and opened the brown eyes on which already a dull film had gathered.

"I have come back to you, Reverend Mother," she said, gaspingly. "I have come home to—to begin again. Perhaps I can get well here. It is so quiet, so peaceful—so peaceful—" Her voice died away and she lay staring at the bare white ceiling of the room to which she had been carried. The little gleam of consciousness went out. From the distant chapel came the voices of Sister Cecilia's choir, rehearsing the music of the next day. The sick woman heard it and started up, pushing back the hands that tried to hold her.