Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/244

 Ah, but such a grief—and such a mother! True, she had left her mother. She had given her up when she heard the call to the cloister, and they had both realized, the two who loved each other so fondly, all that separation meant. But her mother had been well and strong and happy in the love of her husband and her other daughter. At the stipulated intervals her letters had come to the convent without the maternal tenderness and the home atmosphere they breathed ever causing a regret in the nun's breast. But now, in sickness, in sorrow, in death—oh, if she could be there, with her mother!

Sister Cuthbert sank lower before the altar. She had forgotten where she was; almost forgotten what she was. She drooped, a huddled mass of black, under the white veil that told of her probation.

Yes, she reflected stanchly, her place was here, and here she would remain. Was it only yesterday she had been so happy? Now she felt like a prisoner, for her mother lay dying outside the walls within which, by her own act, she had shut herself away. She had come, and her mother had wished her to come. Were they both wrong in feeling that here her life-work lay? Never! A thrill of the old ecstasy in her choice filled the nun. Across the