The Superior laid her hand on Sister Alexandra's bent head.
Alex clasped it desperately.
"I shall still be your child always?" she almost wailed, with a weight of things unspoken on her heart, and in a last frantic attempt to carry away one definite assurance.
The slightest possible severity mingled in Mother Gertrude's clear gaze, bent downwards as she rose to her full height, her carriage as upright and as dignified as it had been ten years before.
"No, Sister," she said very distinctly. "You will be the child of whatever Superior God may send you in my place."
"You know that we in the convent have no human ties, only spiritual ones. You will see your Divine Master, and Him only, in the person of your Superior in religion. Remember that, little Sister. You must learn detachment if you are to be truly faithful. That is my last and most earnest counsel to you. I shall pray daily that you may be given strength to follow it."
"Don't go!" gasped Alex, hardly knowing what she said, as she saw the Superior's hand upon the door. "Don't go away like that. Oh, Mother, Mother, how shall I bear it? I've only got you and now you're going away for ever."
She broke into tearless sobs.
"Sister Alexandra! Has it come to this? I am indeed to blame if you are still so undisciplined and so weak as to cling to a mere creature—you that have been chosen by God to love Him, and Him only! I could not have believed it." Mother Gertrude's tone held bitter remorse and shame.
Alex' old, pitiful instinct of propitiating the being she loved best sprang to life within her.