“Yes,” said Rosamund gently. “It’s very kind. Thank you. But I know you’ll understand that I don’t want to see anybody except my sister just at present. Can you take me to her?”
She rose as she spoke, but Mrs. Mulholland did not move, and her large old face became mottled and suffused with pity.
“Now, my dear child, my dear child, you must be very calm and brave and make a little sacrifice. You know it’s quite against all convent regulations to let strangers into the enclosure—quite unheard of. It can’t possibly be done.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sister Frances Mary’s in her cell, dear—just where she was when she was taken worse, they haven’t been able to move her. You can’t possibly see her.”
Rosamund, with a pang that shook her physically from head to foot, realized subconsciously that it was for this that she had, in some strange way, been waiting.
“I can’t go to my own sister, who may be dying, and who wants me? I must go.” Her voice sounded utterly strange to her own ears.
“Now—now—don’t take it like that, dear. It is very hard, but that’s one of the sacrifices God asks of your dear little sister in return for the great grace of her vocation, and you must help her to make it generously. I know it’s hard for you, and—— Where are you going, dear?”
“To find my sister.”
Mrs. Mulholland heaved herself out of her chair, pinioned Rosamund by a kind but iron grip upon her arm, and began again very earnestly: