Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/248

 stiffen. The doctors stepped back, and Dr. Sedgwick, going to the man at the foot of the bed, put a sympathetic hand under his arm and helped him to rise. Edith, who had sprung to her feet, sank down again with a bitter cry. The strange doctor drew the sheet gently over the still face on the pillow.

And now there were tapers burning about that placid face.—No!—This was the convent chapel, and the tapers were those that burned dimly on the altar. It had grown dark and cold. She was still upon her knees. She heard the sound of the vesper bell.

Oh, the tender mercifulness of God! She had given up seeing her mother after the long, rebellious outcry of her weak, human heart. And then He had taken her to her mother, who had seen her and had died in peace. She seemed not to touch the floor as she walked down the long aisle and out of the chapel to the main hall beyond.

One of the nuns met her and spoke as she passed. Sister Cuthbert replied with her usual sweet dignity, but her expression, in the white light of the electric globe overhead, breathed such exaltation that the nun stopped and looked after her with reverent wonder. Sister Cuthbert went directly to the room of the Mother Superior and told her experience.