"The story goes, then?" Mabane remarked.
"Yes, it goes," I assented, my eyes fixed absently upon the loose sheets of manuscript strewn all over my desk. Already I was finding it hard to tear my thoughts away from it.
There was a short silence. Then Mabane, who had been filling his pipe, came over to my side.
"You heard from the convent this morning, Arnold?"
"Yes! The letter is here. Read it!"
Mabane shook his head.
"I can't read French," he said.
"They want her back again," I told him, thoughtfully. "The woman appears to be honest enough. She admits that they have no absolute claim—they do not even know her parentage. They have been paid, she says, regularly and well for the child's education, and if she is now without a home they would like her to go back to them. She thinks it possible that Major Delahaye's relatives, or the people for whom he acted, might continue the payments, but they are willing to take their risk of that. The long and short of it is, that they want her back again."
"As a pupil still?" Mabane asked.
"They would train her for a teacher. In that case she would have to serve a sort of novitiate. She would practically become a nun."