"So you knew that?" the Superior said, smilingly. "You have been given very great gifts."
"Me—how?" faltered Alex.
"It is not every one who would have had the courage to withdraw before it was too late."
"You mean, it would have been much worse if I'd actually married him?"
"Much, much worse. A finite human love will never satisfy that restless heart of yours, Alex. Tell me, have you ever found full satisfaction in the love of any creature yet? Hasn't there always been something lacking—something to grieve and disappoint you?"
Alex looked back. She thought of the stormy loves of her childhood; of Queenie, on whom she had lavished such a passion of devotion; of her vain, thwarted longing to bestow all where the merest modicum would have sufficed; lastly, she thought of Noel Cardew.
"Noel did not want all that I could have given him," she faltered. "He never knew the reallest part of me at all."
"And yet he loved you, Alex—he wanted you for his wife. But the closest of human intercourse, the warmest and dearest of human sympathy, will never be enough for a temperament like yours." She spoke with such authority in her voice that Alex was almost frightened.
"Shall I always be lonely, then?" she asked, feeling that whatever the answer she must accept it unquestioningly for truth.
"Until you have learnt the lesson which I think is before you," said the nun slowly.