Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/19

 her lungs. He expressed regret that he was now forbidden the convent and the privilege of helping her.

"It is only the first stage," he remarked to his assistant, more seriously than he usually spoke. "I might have been able to do something to arrest it if the brood hadn't taken fright at the simple admiration of an old man."

"Give her plenty of fresh air," he had said to the convent infirmarian, who stood beside the patient during his examination. "Keep her in the garden as much as possible—and at all events keep her out of the school-room."

Sister Edgar had not been kept out of the school-room, for the reason that she had gently protested against remaining away from it. She found teaching the girls—so many of whom she loved—a distraction from haunting thoughts which were as new as they were terrible. In the shadow of death, life had suddenly grown attractive. She did not analyze this, even to herself, and she gave no outward sign of lack of peace; but Sister George, who had known and loved her in the world as well as in the convent, knew that she was not as indifferent as she seemed.

Sister George stood looking down at her now, an expression of austere affection in her beautiful eyes. For a moment she could not speak,