She had spent but one year at home after her graduation from a convent school, so that she had encountered nothing of the world’s wickedness and weakness, yet she seemed to have plumbed the depths of the science of souls; her talk was illuminative and tonic to Cis.
“Will she die, Sister?” Cis asked, speaking of their patient.
“Surely; we all shall,” smiled the nun. “But yes; I think Myrtle will not live long. You see, she has used up all her capital of strength, burned it like a fuel that yields cold, not heat. I think she will not last long.”
“And will she die well—sorry, you know?” Cis hesitated; she found it hard to talk of Rodney’s wife’s state, even to Sister Bonaventure.
“My dear,” said Sister Bonaventure with her smile, which Cis found at once illuminative and baffling, “as to that we can only pray and hope; pray that she may have the grace she so sorely needs; hope that when she receives the sacraments they may have the soil to work on in which they always are fruitful. The poor things who die in our infirmary rarely refuse the last offices, and we try to make them fit to receive them; after that—” Sister Bonaventure waved her hands expressing the Infinite Mercy, and the incomprehensibility of human minds. “I think they are probably sorry, and God is anxious to go half-way to meet a parting soul. Habit dulls us all; perhaps God has to come farther toward all of us than we think He does, even to the best of us.”
“What a miracle to be where Myrtle Moore was, yet to die with you Sisters praying around her!” cried Cis, tears in her eyes.
“What a miracle it is to die anywhere, yet with immortality and infinity around us!” cried Sister Bonaventure. “Cicely, we are so surrounded with miracles, so accustomed to handling them, that we are obtuse! Now, my dear, this woman’s former husband, who is still her husband, for they were married by a priest, and their divorce does not touch the fact—what about him? He should be sent for, if she grows as much worse within a week as our doctor and our Sister Infirmarian expects her to. She does not know where he is, and we are completely at sea as to how to look for him. Could you make a suggestion?”
“Did you know, Sister, that I was going to marry him, not knowing that he had ever been married? And that he would not deceive me, so, at the last minute—our home was preparing—he told me that he was divorced?” cried Cis.
“Was that the way of it?” asked Sister Bonaventure serenely. “No, I did not know anything whatever, but I surmised that there was something to know, that your interest in the patient was not fully explained by your rescue of her. Have you his address, my dear?”
“He can always be reached through his firm, the main house, in Chicago,” replied Cis. “I have that address; yes, Sister. Shall I give it to you?”