“Not a bit better than Lot’s wife!” says Mother Ada. “She was struck to a pillar of salt for looking back, and so shalt thou be, Sister Annora, with thy worldly fancies and carnal longings.”
Well, if I were, I am not sure I should feel much different. Sometimes I seem to myself to be hardening into stone, body and soul. Soul! ah, that is the worst of it.
Now and then, in the dead of night, when I lie awake—and for an hour or more after lauds, I can seldom sleep—one awful thought harrieth and weareth me, at times almost to madness. I never knew till a year ago, when I heard the Lord Prior speaking to Mother Gaillarde thereanent, that holy Church held the contract of marriage for the true canonical tie. And if it be thus, and we were never divorced—and I never heard word thereof—what then? Am I his true wife—I, not she? Is he happy with her? Who is she, and what is she? Doth she care for him, and make him her first thought, and give all her heart to him, as I would have done, if—
How the convent bell startled me! Miserable me! I am vowed to God, and I am His for ever. But the vow that came first, if it were never undone—Mater purissima, Sancta Virgo virginum, ora pro me!
Is there some tale, some sad, strange story, lying behind those dark eyes, in that shut-up heart of my sister Margaret? Not like mine; she was never betrothed. But her eyes seem to me to tell a story.
Margaret never speaks to me, unless I do it first: and I dare not, except about some work, when Mother Gaillarde or Mother Ada is present. Yet once or twice I have caught those dark eyes scanning my face, with a wistful look. Maybe she too is trying to crush down her heart, as I have done. But I cannot help thinking that the heart behind those eyes will take a great deal of crushing.
Mother Alianora is so different from the two I named just now, I am sure there is not a better nor holier woman in all the Order. But she is always gentle and tender; never cold like Mother Ada, nor hard and sarcastic like Mother Gaillarde. I am glad my Lady Prioress rules with an easy hand—(“sadly too slack!” saith Mother Gaillarde)—so that dear Mother Alianora doth not get chidden for what is the best part of her. I should not be afraid of speaking to Margaret if only she were present of our superiors.
At recreation-time, this afternoon, Sister Amphyllis asked Mother Alianora how long she had been professed.
“Forty-nine years,” saith she, with her gentle smile.
I was surprised to hear it. She hath then been in the Order only five years longer than I have.