'I have made up my mind to go to the lepers with the others, Mother, if you will give me your permission.'

The alabaster face suddenly glowed like white fire in the early light, the dark eyebrows knitted themselves angrily, and the lips parted to speak a hasty word, but immediately closed again. A long silence followed Sister Giovanna's speech, and the elder nun looked down at her papers and moved some of them about mechanically, from one place to another on the table.

'Are you angry with me, Mother?' asked Sister Giovanna, not understanding.

'With you, child?' The Mother looked up, and her face had softened a little. 'No, I am not angry with you--at least, I hope I am not.'

It was rather an ambiguous answer, to say the least, and the young nun waited meekly for an explanation. None came, but instead, advice, delivered in a direct and businesslike tone.

'You had better put the idea out of your mind for a month or so, honestly and with all the intention of which you are capable. If this is a mere impulse, felt under some mental distress, it will subside and you will think no more about it. If it is a true call, it will come back and you will obey it in due time. More than that, I cannot tell you. If you are not satisfied that I am advising you well, go to Monsignor Saracinesca the next time he is here. It is my place to warn, not to hinder; to help you if I can, not to stand in your way.

That is all, my daughter. Go to your duties.'

Sister Giovanna bent her head obediently and left the room at once.

When she was gone, the Mother Superior rose from her desk and went into her cell, locking the door after her. An hour later she was still on her knees and her face was buried in her hands. She was weeping bitterly.

In all that numerous community which she governed and guided so well there was not one person who would have believed that she could shed tears, scalding and pa.s.sionate, even rebellious, perhaps, if the whole truth were known; for no Sister or novice of them all could have imagined that such irresistible grief could take possession of a woman who, as they all said among themselves, was made of steel and ice, merely because one more of them wished to go to the Far East where so many had gone already.

But they did not know anything about the Mother Superior. Indeed, when all was said, they knew next to nothing of her past, and as it was against all rules to discuss such matters, it was not likely that they should ever hear more, even if a new Sister joined them who chanced to have some information. They were aware, of course, that her name, in religion, was Mother Veronica, though they did not speak of her except as the Mother Superior. It was true that they had never heard of a nun of their order taking the name of Veronica, but that was not a matter to criticise either. She spoke exceedingly pure Italian, with the accent and intonation of a Roman lady, but it was no secret that when she had come to take the place of her predecessor, who had died suddenly, she had arrived from Austria; and she also spoke German fluently, which argued that she had been in that country some time.

There was certainly nothing in these few facts to account for what she suffered when Sister Giovanna spoke of going to Rangoon, and it would have been hard to believe that her burning tears overflowed in spite of her, not only that first time but often afterwards, at the mere thought of parting with the best nurse in the hospital, even if she felt some special sympathy for her.

Whatever the cause of her trouble was, no one knew of it; and that she found no cause for self-accusation in what she felt is clear, since she made no mention of it in her next confession. Indeed, she more often found fault with herself for being harsh in her judgments and too peremptory and tyrannical in the government of her community, than for giving way easily to the impulses of human sympathy. She was not nervous either, in the sense of her nerves being unsteady or overwrought in consequence of a long-continued strain; there was nothing in her weeping that could have suggested a neurotic breakdown even to the most sceptical of physicians. It was genuine, irresistible, overwhelming grief, and she knew that its cause was not even in part imaginary, but was altogether real, and terrible beyond any expression.

Nevertheless, she found strength to speak to Monsignor Saracinesca of Sister Giovanna's intention, one day when he came to see her early in the morning on a matter of business; for he managed the finances of the Convent hospital and was also its representative in any questions in which the inst.i.tution, as distinguished from the order had secular dealings with the world.

The prelate and the Mother met as usual in the cloistered garden, and when Convent affairs had been disposed of, they continued their walk in silence for a few moments.

'I want your unprejudiced opinion about the future of one of the Sisters,' said the Mother Superior at last, in her usual tone.

'I will try to give it,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca.

'Sister Giovanna wishes to go to Rangoon with the other three.'

The churchman betrayed no surprise, and answered without hesitation:

'You know what I always say in such cases, when I am consulted.'

'Yes. I have given her that advice--to wait a month to try to put the idea out of her mind, to make sure that it is not a pa.s.sing impulse.'

'You cannot do more,' said Monsignor Saracinesca, 'nor can I.'

The Mother Superior turned up her white face and looked at him so steadily that he gazed at her in surprise.

'It ought to be stopped,' she said, with sudden energy. 'It may be wrong to call it suicide and to interfere on that ground, but there is another, and a good one. I am responsible for the hospital here, for the nursing in it, and for the Sisters who are sent out to private cases. Year after year, one, two, and sometimes three of my best young nurses go away to these leper asylums in Rangoon and other places in the Far East. It is not the stupid ones that go, the dull, devoted creatures who could do that one thing well, because it is perfectly mechanical and a mere question of prophylaxis, precaution, and routine--and charity. Those that go always seem to be the best, the very nurses who are invaluable in all sorts of difficult cases from an operation to a typhoid fever; the most experienced, the cleverest, the most gifted! How can I be expected to keep up our standard if this goes on year after year? It is outrageous! And the worst of it is that the "vocation" is catching! The clever ones catch it because they are the most sensitively organised, but not the good, simple, humdrum little women who would be far better at nursing lepers than at a case of appendicitis--and better in heaven than in a leper asylum, for that matter!'

Monsignor Saracinesca listened in silence to this energetic tirade; but when the little white volcano was quiescent for a moment, he shook his head. It was less an expression of disapproval than of doubt.

'It is manifestly impossible to send the least intelligent of the Sisters, if they do not offer to go,' he answered. 'Besides, how would you pick out the dull ones? By examination?'

He was not without a sense of humour, and his sharply-chiselled lips twitched a little but were almost instantly grave again. The Mother Superior's profile was as still as a marble medallion.

'It ought to be stopped altogether,' she said presently, with conviction. 'Meanwhile, though I have told Sister Giovanna that it is not my place to hinder her, much less my right, I tell you plainly that I will prevent her from going, if I can!'

This frank statement did not surprise the prelate, who was used to her direct speech and energetic temper, and liked both. But he said little in answer.

'That is your affair, Reverend Mother. You will do what your conscience dictates.'

'Conscience?' repeated the nun with a resentful question in her tone.

'If the word really means anything, which I often doubt, it is an instinctive discernment of right and wrong in one's own particular case, to be applied to the salvation of one's own soul. Is it not?'

'Undoubtedly.'

'What have I to do with my own particular case?' The volcano flared up indignantly. 'It is my duty to do what is best for the souls and bodies of forty women and girls, more or less, and of a great number of sick persons here and in their own homes, without considering myself at all, my instincts, or my little individual discernment of my own feelings, or my human likes and dislikes of people. If my duty leads me into temptation, I have got to face temptation intentionally, instead of avoiding it, as we are taught to do, and if I break down under it, so much the worse for me--the good of the others will have been accomplished nevertheless! That is one side of my life. Another is that if my duty demands that I should tear out my heart and trample on it, I ought not to hesitate, though I knew I was to die of the pain!'

The clear low voice vibrated strangely.

'But I will not do it, unless it is to bring about some real good to others,' she added.

Monsignor Saracinesca glanced at her face again before he answered.

'Your words are clear enough, but I do not understand you,' he said.

'If I can possibly help you, tell me what it is that distresses you.

If not, let us talk of other things.'

'You cannot help me.' Her thin lips closed upon each other in an even line.

'I am sorry,' answered the churchman gravely. 'As for Sister Giovanna's intention, I share your opinion, for I think she can do more good here than by sacrificing herself in Burmah. If she consults me, I shall tell her so.'

'Thank you.'

They parted, and the Mother Superior went back to her room and her work with a steady step and holding her head high. But she did not even see a lay sister who was scrubbing her small private staircase, and who rose to let her pa.s.s, saluting her as she went by.

Monsignor Saracinesca left the garden by the gla.s.s door that opened into the large hall, already described, and he went out past the portress's little lodge. She was just opening the outer door when he came up with her, and the next moment he found himself face to face with Madame Bernard. He stepped back politely to let her pa.s.s, and lifted his hat with a smile of recognition; but instead of advancing she uttered a little cry of surprise and satisfaction, and retreated to let him come out. He noticed that her face betrayed great excitement, and she seemed hardly able to speak.

'What is the matter?' he asked kindly, as he emerged from the deep doorway.

The portress was waiting for Madame Bernard to enter, but the Frenchwoman had changed her mind and held up her hand, shaking one forefinger.

'Not to-day, Anna!' she cried. 'Or later--I will come back, perhaps--I cannot tell. May I walk a few steps with you, Monseigneur?'

'By all means,' answered the prelate.

The door of the Convent closed behind them, but Madame Bernard was evidently anxious to get well out of hearing before she spoke. At the corner of the quiet street she suddenly stood still and looked up to her companion's face, evidently in great perturbation.

'Well?' he asked. 'What is it?'

'Giovanni Severi is alive.'

Monsignor Saracinesca thought the good woman was dreaming.