Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/165

 she had not given him his answer. She wrote and specified a certain night when he was to come for it. She told herself reproachfully that she had been neglecting her poor, putting the real things of life from her while she dreamed idle dreams. She thought she despised herself. She repeated this to herself as time passed, and the eventful day came. She would give him his answer that night, and it should be "No." Perhaps, after it, she could settle again into the old routine in which she had plodded so patiently before he came. It should be "No." She wondered if she would better write it, but decided against that. She would see him once more. They would have at least a parting—something to recall in the dreary days to come; and in the mean time she would fortify herself by a little visit to the convent. In the chapel, and with the nuns, she would find strength for the renunciation she had determined finally and definitely to make.

She drove to the old building and waited in the convent garden for her favorite among the inmates—Sister George. The world itself seemed to be in league against her as she sat by the sleepy fountain, for all nature was a love-song that June day. Over her arched the blue sky, and across its mirror birds skimmed, dropping a shower of jubilant notes.