"Your heart must be in this sacrament, your whole heart, you must have no longings after the world. Is it not so?"
"Oh yes," she said, her voice trembling, tears in her eyes.
"Have you any longings that might be a shadow on your nun's life, my child? Have you? Nay, don't be afraid to speak."
"Oh, don't ask me," she said, repressing her sobs.
"You do not think your life here involves a sin? You have enabled me to paint a heavenly image that might, so far as the pure spirit of it goes, decorate the fairest church. I do not say the work, Marietta, but the intention, the inspiration."
She found this question too subtle for her comprehension, but there was something in the artist's tone and manner that thrilled her, something that was like the influence of the
Magnificat in the great choir of the cathedral. She turned her wondering eyes towards him, and he took her hands in his.
"You have been happy here?" he asked, his voice trembling.
"Yes, very."
"Then why leave me? Put up with the gloom and fog for my sake, Marietta. Be the artist's little wife as well as his model."