“You ought to know best. I believe you are what they call a monomaniac. You are crazy on the subject of freedom. You want to be free.”
“But, Sister Agatha, if you were shut up in a house against your will, wouldn’t you desire to be free?”
“There it is! I knew you would put things cunningly. But I’m prepared for it. You mustn’t think to deceive me, child, Why not be honest, and confess your wits are wandering?”
The door of the communicating room was here unlocked.
“What’s that?” asked Clara.
“They are bringing in your breakfast,” said the sister. “I hope you have an appetite.”
Though faint and sick at heart, Clara resolved to conceal her emotions. So she sat down and made a show of eating.
“I will leave you awhile,” said the sister. “If you want anything, you can ring.”
Left to herself, Clara rose and promenaded the apartment, her thoughts intently turned inward to a survey of her position. Why had she been removed to this new abode? Plainly because Semmes feared she would be aided by her companions in baffling his vigilance and effecting her escape. Clara knelt by the bedside and prayed for light and guidance; and an inward voice seemed to say to her: “You talk of trusting God, and yet you only half trust him.”
What could it mean? Clara meditated upon it long and anxiously. What had been her motive in procuring the dagger! A mixed motive and vague. Perhaps it was to take her own life, perhaps another’s. Had she not reached that point of faith that she could believe God would save her from both these alternatives? Yes; she would doubt no longer. Walking to the back window she drew the dagger from its sheath and threw it far out into a clump of rose-bushes that grew rank in the centre of the area.