Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/270

 dropped off herself with a sigh of exhaustion.

It was just midnight when the Imp arose. The great dormitory was very still. Not a sound came from any of the small, white-curtained beds snowily outlined by the dim light that burned at the far end of the room near Sister Italia's curtained retreat. The Imp threw her little woollen wrapper over her night-gown, thrust her bare feet into the woollen slippers by the bed, grasped firmly her candle and three precious matches she had secured, and, with movements as lithe and noiseless as those of a cat, stole along the wall, opened the door, and found herself in the wide corridor outside. There, too, a light burned dimly, and there was a chance that the Sisters who formed the convent watch and patrolled the wings of the great building at night as a guard against fire or other calamity might see her. Fortune favored her. The long hall was deserted, and the Imp flashed through it like a meteor, then down a side extension, and finally to the wing where the tower was situated. It was a February night and bitterly cold, but what was physical discomfort to Mercedes Centi, sustained by her lofty mission? A little work with a pen-knife, and her fingers opened the door that led to the tower, and in another moment she