Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/23

 "Yes, I know, but not now," murmured the invalid, drooping dejectedly forward in her place. "Not for a long time, perhaps; and I must make the journey all alone. That thought is constantly with me. I lie awake and think at night—not of the mere going—certainly not of the peace and happiness beyond, in which we all believe so thoroughly. That is the horrible phase of it. I cannot get my imagination past the mere act of dying—the suffocation, and the picture of the lonely little cemetery at Palm Grove. It is all wrong, I know. Do not tell me that; tell me how to bear it better."

The woman's nerves, worn by illness, recoiled at the thought. She trembled violently and caught her friend's hand in both her own.

"Margaret," she cried, brokenly, "how shall I gain strength and courage? I do not want to die."

The use of the worldly name, for the first time in all these years, was like a cry out of the old life. The heart of the other woman, which, perhaps, had come to beat a little mechanically under the black habit of the cloistered nun, responded to it as if it were. She sat down and drew the trembling form into her arms, comforting it as a mother might comfort a child crying out in the night. For a moment they remained so without speaking,