She pressed her icy fingers to her hot and throbbing temples, and tried to understand the situation.
Then memory flashed back like lightning, revealing all the desolation of her storm-blasted, wrecked and ruined life.
With a deep and shuddering groan she threw her hands up to her head, and sank back in her seat.
"Is Madame ill? Can we do anything to help her?" inquired a kindly voice near her.
In her surprise Salome dropped her hands, and at the same time her vail fell from before her face.
Suddenly she then saw that the three mute, shrouded forms before her were Sisters of Mercy, in the black robes of their order, and knew that they had only maintained silence in accordance with their decorous rule of avoiding vain conversation.
Even now the taller and elder of the three had spoken only to tender her services to a suffering fellow-creature.
The fugitive bride and the Sister of Mercy looked at each other, and at the instant uttered exclamations of surprise.
In the sister, Salome recognized a lay nun of the Convent of St. Rosalie, in which she had passed nearly all the years of her young life, and in which she had received her education, and to which it had once been her cherished desire to return and dedicate herself to a conventual service.
In Salome the nun saw again a once beloved pupil, whom she, in common with all her sisterhood, had fondly expected to welcome back to her novitiate.