The servant brought up the tea and went downstairs. Then there was a complete silence for some minutes, each waiting for another to speak first. Catherine was staring fixedly into the fire, with a look on her face that awed the two women, they imagined that some great calamity must of a certainty have befallen the Cause.
At last Sister Eliza spoke, she could bear the suspense no longer.
"Sister Catherine, you say you have summoned us to discuss some important matter?"
The Chief looked up, and replied with a forced calmness in her voice: "Yes; I wish to put before you the conduct of one of the Sisterhood—of Mary Grimm, in fact."
"I suspected her!" put in Susan eagerly, the shadow of fear passing from her face; she had not forgotten her hatred for Mary, though so far she had found no opportunity for gratifying it.
"Mary wishes to leave us," continued the Chief.
"So I suspected," broke in again the exultant voice of Susan.
"I have discovered that she has formed an attachment with a man."
"I knew it, and you have called us here to decide what shall be done with the traitor?"