I was going on, but something which I saw made me stop suddenly. Two warriors were fighting together in Mother Gaillarde’s face. All at once she dropped the knife, and hiding her face in her veil, she sobbed for a minute as if her heart were breaking. Then, all at once, she brushed away her tears and stood up again.
“Child!” she said, in a voice very unlike her usual one, “you are too young for your years. Do not think that dried-up hearts are the same thing as no hearts. Women who seem as though they could not love any thing may have loved once too well, and when they awoke from the dream may never have been able to dream again. Ay, thou art right: death is not perfection. Some of us, maybe, are very far off perfection—further than others think us; furthest of all from what we think ourselves. There have been times when I seemed to see for a moment what perfection is—and it was far, far from all we call it here. God forgive us all! Go to the Infirmary: and if any chide thee for being there, say thou earnest in obedience to me.”
She turned back to her plum-stoning with a resolute face which might have been a mask of iron: and I, after offering lowly thanks, took the way to the Infirmary.
I fear I have been unjust to Mother Gaillarde, and I am sorry for it. I seem to see now, that her hard, snappish speeches (for she does snap sometimes) are not from absence of heart, but are simply a veil to hide the heart. Ah me! how little we human creatures know of each others’ hidden feelings! But I shall never think Mother Gaillarde without heart again.
Note 1. The rule of silence varied considerably in different Orders, but in all, except the very strict, nuns were at liberty to converse during some period of the day.
Note 2. This transferring of Margaret from Watton is purely imaginary.