Rosamund wrung her hands together in silent anguish.
She did not know what Frances’ latest decision might portend, but there seemed to stretch before her a despairing vista of pain and separation, based on principles that appeared to her but as the shadow of a dream.
XX
IT was in a very little while that Mrs. Tregaskis became fully aware of the fallacy in her hopeful theory that the crisis was over for the younger of her two adopted daughters.
“I can’t think how I could ever have been so blind. Give children an inch and they’ll take an ell! I might have guessed that Frances would develop some fanatic notion of this kind. Why did I ever let her go to that wretched convent? She’s thought of nothing else ever since, and now she tells me that they’re ‘willing to receive her’ into the novitiate there. Willing, indeed! I should think they were!”
“Of course, Bertie dear, if you let her get under the influence of priests and nuns, what else can you expect?” inquired Mrs. Severing.
“You can’t reproach me more than I do myself,” said Bertha vehemently. “Though I must say, dearest, it’s rather laughable coming from you, since you were the very person who urged me to send the child to make that Retreat, and even insisted on going with her yourself, if you remember.”
Nina looked at her greatest friend for a moment in silence, and then said in the compassionate tones of a ministering angel:
“My poor dear! I can see that you’re so much on edge about the whole thing, you simply don’t know what you’re saying. I am so sorry for you.”
“Thank you, Nina,” said Mrs. Tregaskis rather dryly. “It would be more to the point, perhaps, if you knew what to say to Frances. Do you think you could put a little sense into her?”