But help me, teach me, guide me, Lord, just for to-day.’
Have you never heard that before? Dear me, dear me, I don’t believe you Protestant girls are ever taught anything at all. Excuse me for saying so, my dear, but really it’s true. Now before you settle anything I should like you to have a good talk with Mère Pauline.”
The Superior saw Rosamund in the parlour, but the understanding which she was ready to extend as to one of her own daughters in religion, failed oddly to touch any responsive chord. It was as though the two spoke different languages.
Rosamund did not want to talk with the convent chaplain, as Mère Pauline suggested, and felt merely a faint distaste at the suggestion that “cette épreuve” might be meant to guide her into the way of the true Faith.
Mère Pauline did not pursue the subject, but she appeared uneasy at Rosamund’s listless suggestion of returning to Porthlew.
“Je n’aime pas cette atmosphère-là,” she remarked with an air of omniscience that sat oddly on her little spectacled countenance.
The direct act of God therefore appeared to Mère Pauline solely responsible for the next letter from Mrs. Tregaskis, which again altered Rosamund’s plans.
Frederick Tregaskis was very ill with pneumonia.
“I don’t leave him day or night,” wrote Bertha, “and the house would be utterly dreary for you just now. Stay on at the convent, my dear, if you’re finding peace and shelter there, and when I’ve battled through the worst of this we must look forward to meeting. It’s a sad world, Rosamund, my dear, but there’s nothing for it but to keep a stiff upper lip. I’ll write when I can.
“Your ever loving old
“B. H. T.”