These answers, and the manner in which they were spoken even more than the answers themselves, frightened the Prioress; but unable to think of what might have happened, she sat wondering, waiting for Evelyn to reveal herself. The hour was late, and Evelyn showed no signs of speaking. Perhaps it would be better to ring for one of the lay sisters, and ask her to show Evelyn to her room.
"You will stay here to-night?"
"Yes, if you will allow me."
"Allow you, my dear child! Why speak in this way?"
"Oh, Mother, I am done for, I am done for!"
"You haven't told me yet what has happened."
Evelyn did not answer; she seemed to have forgotten everything, or to be thinking of one thing, and unable to detach her thoughts from it sufficiently to answer the Prioress's question.
"Your father—"
"My father is dead," she answered. And the Prioress, imagining her father's death to be the cause of this mental breakdown, spoke of the consolations of religion, which no doubt Mr. Innes had received, and which would enable Mr. Innes's soul to appear before a merciful God for judgment.
"There is little in this life, my dear; we should not be sorry for those who leave it—that is, if they leave it in a proper disposition of soul."