"And you were told that she had been ill two months in consequence of a mental shock?"
"Yes."
"Then one may fairly conclude that the event which caused her illness occurred early in the September of 1871."
"I think so."
"Good. I thank you most heartily, Madame," with a courteous bow to the Reverend Mother, "for the help you and Sister Gudule have so graciously bestowed upon me. But I would venture to ask one more favour, namely, that you would honour me with a line by way of introduction to the worthy priest who brought Léonie Lemarque from Paris."
"Alas, Monsieur, that is impossible! Father Sorbier died three years ago, just a year before Léonie left us."
"That is unfortunate. He doubtless knew the mystery of the girl's childhood, and perhaps might have helped me to unravel the secret of her strange death."
"Do you really believe that the two events have any bearing upon each other, Monsieur?" demanded Sister Gudule thoughtfully.
"I know not, Madame," replied Heathcote; "but it is only by working backwards that I can hope to arrive at any clue to the mystery which has puzzled us all in Cornwall. That poor girl must have had some purpose in going to England, in travelling to so remote a neighbourhood as ours. Even if her death were an accident, or an unpremeditated crime, her presence in that place cannot have been accidental."
Mr. Heathcote asked to see the class-rooms and the chapel before he left the convent, a request which was graciously accepted, as a compliment to the Reverend Mother. He was paraded along wide and airy passages, was shown an empty refectory, where plates and mugs and huge piles of bread and butter were arranged on long deal tables, covered with snow-white linen, in readiness for the afternoon goûter. He saw the chapel with its humble decorations, its somewhat crude copy of a well-known Guido, its altar, rich in gilded paper, home-made lace, and cheap china vases. All here spoke of small means; but the flowers on the altar were freshly gathered, and the neatness and cleanliness of all things in chapel and convent charmed the stranger's eye. He slipped a couple of sovereigns into the box by the door, praised the airy corridors, the spacious whitewashed rooms, and left the principal and the lay-sister alike charmed with his good French and his friendly manners.