"I'm afraid you've got a cold, my dear," said Colonel Harcourt, withdrawing apprehensively. His glance wandered to the wall in search of distraction from the sight of his sick child, successfully evading the picture of St. Lawrence on the grid-iron, only to light upon the martyrdom of St. Agnes, from the details of which he visibly shrank. "Good God, what awful pictures! How you can——" He stopped abruptly and seized his hat. "Well I've some news for you. I'm sorry I can't take you out to-day." It struck him that the delicate oval face might have found a more suitable frame than the stiff black sailor hat which the nuns had chosen for it. "You won't mind, I know; I've got an engagement I can't break. I'm going to give you a new mother, my dear; I'll bring her to see you some day, and then we'll take you to the Zoo?" He halted again, inwardly convinced the future Mrs. Harcourt, to whom he had described Evelyn as "only a baby," would resent the inconvenient size of his offspring. "Now good-bye, my dear; you'll be wanting to play with your doll. God bless you."
The last unintelligible ejaculation was intended to convey his strict observance of that piety which is demanded of all who pass through convent gates.
He was gone. Evelyn heard his footsteps die away, and caught his relieved farewell to the sour-faced portress before the front-door clanged. She could almost hear the breath of relief he would draw as the tension of the last few uneasy moments snapped.... What did he know of her? What did he care to know? A new mother!—A new mother!
She ran down the corridor, sweeping aside the restraining hand of a nun who tried to stop her. She wanted Sister Veronica; Sister Veronica would understand; Sister Veronica was still young. Sister Veronica was daily corrected for evil-doing; Sister Veronica's heart had not yet turned to stone.
"That's well over," Colonel Harcourt congratulated himself complacently, hailing a hansom. "What a prison it is—harder to escape from each time. They'll make a nun of the child eventually, I suppose. Perhaps it would be the best thing, after all."
But Evelyn was not of the material which makes nuns. The convent appealed to her neither as an escape from sin, nor a barrier to temptation. She loved part of the life, and turned from much in loathing. When she was seventeen it frightened her no longer. Her childish rebellion at petty penances, at the narrow outlook of women whose breasts had never thrilled at the touch of a child's lips, yet who pathetically demanded the title of "Mother" as a cherished claim, had changed to pity. Each grim line that repression had seared on brow or cheek seemed now to Evelyn as a wound received in mortal combat against the glowing, ardent youth that leaped so fearlessly in her own veins at sight and sound of growing things, green shoots of trees, showing timidly, early violets lifting shy heads, the twittering of the mother bird teaching her young to spread her wings. She knew and understood no more of her own nature than this—that it was good to live in spring and summer and early autumn, while even some winter days had their own stinging joy—that the blood which was daily wet on Mother Veronica's discipline, the hair-sheet by which that young and tender flesh was lacerated, were alike protests against intoxicating dreams.... Yet dreams were sweet, and why should they be broken?
Another picture. The convent chapel this time; the hour of Benediction which she loved. Warm glow from the altar, warm glow about her heart. A suffused radiance from the lamps that burned day and night before the Body of the Lord; a wave of light, from the candles upon the altar, that seemed to roll upward as the incense soared, a vivid golden cloud that changed its shape momentarily, and was always beautiful, carrying your eye higher and higher until its glance rested at last in perfect peace upon the jewelled monstrance and pyx that held the Sacred Host. The nun's song stilled—that swan-song of dead womanhood—the hush of concentrated prayer—silence—the tinkling of a bell—the blessing that bathed one in a sea of light....
Music again; the organ only. The sense of human breath, temporarily suspended, returning simultaneously to a vast crowd that had for a short while been swayed by an eternal mystery. The shuffling of feet, the changed poise of many bodies, the jingle of rosaries, hastily kissed and put away, the rhythmic filing out of obedient convent boarders, outer air flowing in. But for some time afterwards Evelyn would move in a dream-world, a little detached from, a little unaware of, the gay chatter and talk of her companions in their recreation hour. One day, when in this mood, she was called to the parlour. Her father and stepmother awaited her with a strange man. It had been suggested that Evelyn was to sail with her parents for India, three months later, but Mrs. Harcourt, who, though no longer in her first youth, possessed some charm still for the other sex, had dreaded the rivalry of the younger woman, and was in consequence untiring in her efforts to alter the arrangement. Henry Brand, an acquaintance of her husband's, had been struck by Evelyn's beauty when visiting the convent in a friend's company one day to hear the music. He offered himself now as a solution to the problem.
"Would you like to be married, Evelyn?" her stepmother demanded abruptly. Something in the rapt look of the girl's face showed her that direct methods would be best. "Your father and I are anxious about you; we feel sure that you are much too delicate for India. Mr. Brand says that he wants to marry you, and we should like to leave you in his care."
"Why—should I mind? Yes, of course I'll marry him if you wish me to," said Evelyn dazedly. She had never cared to dwell on the thought of India in her stepmother's company; marriage with any one—the veriest stranger—would be better. She looked at Henry Brand gravely and sedately as he came to her and took her hand. The expression of her father's face, half-ashamed, and half-relieved, perplexed her; as her stepmother sprang forward, she shrank back from the hilarious embrace. The woman glanced at her husband and nodded. All three conspirators had counted upon Evelyn's obedience. Convent training does its work, and the moment had been especially propitious.