But this letter was different.
Alex knew it at once, even before she had read it to the end of the four closely-covered sheets.
"Sept. 30, 1897.
"MY DEAREST CHILD,
"There are many letters from you waiting to be answered, and I thank you for them all, and for the confidence you bestow upon me, which touches me very deeply.
"Now at last I am able to sit down and feel that I shall have a quiet half-hour in which to talk to my child, although I dare not hope that it will be an uninterrupted one!
"So the life you are leading does not satisfy you, Alex? You tell me that you come in from the gaieties and amusements and little parties, which, after all, are natural to your age and to the position in which God has placed you, full of dissatisfaction and restlessness of mind.
"Alex, my dear child, I am not surprised. You will never find that what the world can offer will satisfy you. Most of us may have known similar moments of fatigue, of disillusionment, but to a heart and mind like yours, above all, it is inconceivable that anything less than Infinity itself should bring any lasting joy. Let me say what I have so often thought, after our conversations together in my little room—there is only one way of peace for such a nature as yours. Give up all, and you shall find all.
"I have thought and prayed over this letter, my little Alex, and am not writing lightly. You will forgive me if I am going too far, but I long to see my child at rest, and for such as you there is only one true rest here.
"Human love has failed you, and you are left alone, with all your impulses of sacrifice and devotion to another thrown back upon yourself. But, Alex, there is One to whom all the love and tenderness of which you know yourself capable can be offered—and He wants it. Weak though you are, and all-perfect though He is, He wants you.
"I don't think there has been a day since I first heard His call, when I have not marvelled at the wonder of it—at the infinite honour done to me.
"If I have told you more of the secret story of my vocation than to any one else, it has been for a reason which I think you have guessed. I have seen for a long while what it was that God asked of you, Alex, and I believe the time has come when you will see it too. Your last letter, with its cry of loneliness, and the bitter sense of being unwanted, has made me almost sure of it.
"You are not unwanted—you need never be lonely again. 'Leave all things and follow Me!' If you hear that call, which I believe with all my heart to have sounded for you, can you disobey it? Will you not rather, forsaking all things, follow Him, and in so doing, find all things?"
"I have written a long while, and cannot go on now. God bless you again and again, and help you to be truly generous with Him.
"Write to me as fully as you will, and count upon my poor prayers and my most earnest religious affection. I need not add come and see me again on your return to London. My child will always find the warmest of welcomes! It was not for nothing that you came into the convent chapel to find rest and quiet, that summer day, my Alex!
"Your devoted Mother in Christ,
"GERTRUDE OF THE HOLY CROSS."
Alex stood almost as though transfixed. The letter hardly came as a surprise. She had long since known subconsciously what was in the Superior's mind, and yet the expression of it produced in her a sort of stupefaction.
Could it be true?
Was there really such a refuge for her, somewhere a need of her, and of that passionate desire for self-devotion that was so essential a part of her?
The thought brought with it a tingling admixture of bitter disappointment and of poignant rapture.
She realized almost despairingly that she could no longer stand in the hall clasping Mother Gertrude's letter unconsciously to her.