He stopped abruptly, his face working.
“And she didn’t answer?”
A wry smile twisted his lips.
“I got my own letter back,” he said quietly. “After all, that was an answer—a conclusive one.”
Gillian was thinking rapidly. Six months ago! A momentary flash of recollection came to her. So Lady Arabella, that wise old citizen of the world, had been quite right after all! She had given Michael six months to find out his imperative need of Magda. And he had found it. Only—something had gone wrong.
“Magda never had that letter,” she said quietly at last.
She was gradually beginning to piece together the separate parts of the puzzle. All letters that came for Magda had been forwarded on to the sisterhood, and had she herself readdressed this of Michael’s she would have recognised the handwriting. But probably she had been away from home, or had chanced to be out at post time, in which case Melrose, or old Virginie, would have readdressed the envelope and dropped it in the pillar box at the corner of the road.
Then—as was the case with any correspondence addressed to one of the Sisters of Penitence—the letter would be read by the Mother Superior and passed on to its destined recipient if she thought good. If not——
Gillian had learned a great deal about Catherine Vallincourt by now, both from Lady Arabella and from Magda herself, who, before leaving the community, had discovered the identity of its head. And she could visualise the stern, fanatical woman, obsessed by her idea of disciplining Magda and of counteracting the effects of her brother’s marriage with Diane Wielitzska, opening the letter and, after perusal, calmly sealing it up in its envelope again and returning it to the sender.
“Magda never had that letter, Michael,” she repeated. “Listen!” And then, without preamble, but with every word vibrant with pity for the whole tragedy, she poured out the story of Magda’s passionate repentance and atonement, of her impetuous adoption of her father’s remorseless theory, mistaken though it might be, that pain is the remedy for sin, and of the utter, hopeless despair which had overwhelmed her now that she believed it had all proved unavailing.