"I can't remember, Mother; some time ago."
The Prioress asked if he were dead a week.
"Oh, more than that, more than that."
"And you have been in Rome ever since? Why did you not come here at once?"
"Why, indeed, did I not come here?" was all Evelyn could say. She seemed to lose all recollection, or at all events she had no wish to speak, and sat silent, brooding. "Of what is she thinking?" the Prioress asked herself, "or is she thinking of anything? She seems lost in a great terror, some sin committed. If she were to confess to me. Perhaps confession would relieve her." And the Prioress tried to lead Evelyn into some account of herself, but Evelyn could only say, "I am done for, Mother, I am done for!" She repeated these words without even asking the Prioress to say no more: it seemed to her impossible to give utterance to the terror in her soul. What could have happened to her?"
"Did you meet, my child, either of the men whom you spoke to me of?"
The question only provoked a more intense agony of grief.
"Mother, Mother, Mother!" she cried, "I am done for! let me go, let me leave you."
"But, my child, you can't leave us to-night, it is too late. Why should you leave us at all?"
"Why did I ever leave you? But, Mother, don't let us talk any more about it. I know myself; no one can tell me anything about myself; it is all clear to me, all clear to me from the beginning; and now, and now, and now—"