“Our plan succeeded beyond our hopes even. In the evening twilight, in the dress in which I left my home, my mother passed out of the Convent gates, with Isola, on the pretext of visiting some old friends on the other side of Le Puy. You, my father, had you seen her then, might have mistaken her for your own daughter, so complete was the resemblance in face, form, and figure. Perhaps she looked a little paler, a little thinner, and a few years older (certainly not more) than I did six months ago, but it would have needed younger and keener eyes than those of the old nuns to have discovered this. And I, in my mother’s dress and hood, had not the slightest fear of detection. I had become so accustomed to the daily routine of the convent, that I knew to the least iota every one of my mother’s religious duties. Latterly, too, she had been so weak and ill she had been allowed to remain very much in her own room. I had acquired, or rather reacquired, the singing intonation peculiar to the Cevenol peasant, and knowing our voices were so nearly one pitch and tone, had no fear of discovery on this point. I drew the hood a little more closely over my face; I was perhaps a little less sociable and friendly with the sisters, and thus for three days I escaped detection.
“But on the fourth day I knew that Pére Ambroise, the Confessor, was expected, and I determined that with him I would attempt no further concealment. He was a personal friend of my mother’s; it was he who induced her to enter the Convent of St. Geneviève, and it was his wise counsels, I don’t doubt, which had restrained and quieted her impetuous temper, as long as it was possible to do so. Such a dear old man, papa, he ought to be made a bishop at the very least, instead of ending his days here as Curé and Confessor to twenty or thirty little nuns. I contrived to meet him as he entered the convent garden, and while walking with him towards the house, told him, in as few words as possible, the story of my mother’s escape, and my reason for planning it. At first he was very angry, although not so much as might have been expected, considering the heavy sin he believed to have been committed.
“‘La petite Sœur (that was the name my mother was known by on account of her comparative youth) ought to have consulted me,’ he said, ‘I have taught her for many years, and she might have relied on my counsels.’
“‘Would you have let her go had she done so?’ I asked.
“‘Without doubt, no,’ he exclaimed, earnestly.
“‘Was there any other way of saving her life or reason?’ I asked again—
“‘My daughter,’ he replied, very gently, ‘you are very young, but I pray that long ere you have reached my age, you will have learned that there are some things to be thought of before life or reason, and that a man or woman must be at times prepared to sacrifice both rather than honour, faith, or the service of God.’
“I felt so ashamed that he should have to speak to me in this way, that I knew not what to say. I felt how wrongly I had acted from first to last. But what was I to do? I was altogether bewildered, and began to wish I had consulted the good Father before. However, it was too late now. I could only repeat I was very sorry to have grieved and offended him, but perhaps if he knew the whole of my story he would not judge me so harshly.
“‘I do not ask for your confidence, my daughter,’ he replied, ‘there may be things in your family history you would not care to repeat, but I had a right to expect your mother’s confidence, and now I find it was but half-given.’
“Then he told me how I had made myself amenable to the laws of the country in thus assisting in the escape of a nun—