Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/197

 and respected him. With him, at least, there was neither thought nor need of her money. But his words had hurt.

"I do not make love to you as a man would with the usual woman," he had said, "for I realize that it would count but little with a woman like yourself. But you will believe me when I tell you how proud and happy I should be to have you for my wife."

She wondered why he had thought it would "count but little." If he loved her, why should he not say so? She did not know, nor had she ever learned. She never thought of him without pain at the memory of the look in his eyes as he went away.

The lonely life went on. In the world, even in the cloister, there seemed to be drawn around her a circle which no one passed. The mental screen had shown the lonely child, the lonely girl, the lonely woman. The arms of classmates were not thrown around her; the rare caresses of the nuns were not given to her. Admired, deeply respected, she was never loved.

She became suddenly conscious of what and where she was—a nun, making her profession on the floor of the convent chapel, under the black pall, with valedictory strains to the world sighing above her. Why had her mind, which should be filled with uplifting thoughts on so