"As if their words could be taken for truth," she uttered, bitterly. "Ah, I know her falsehoods too well."
The nun knew not what to do. The demand of the girl to leave the convent frightened her. She was compelled to falter a refusal.
Then Marie flatly rebelled. Some of the spirit that had made Remond call her a little savage flashed into her eyes, and she vowed that she would not be detained.
The mother went hastily to call Father Quentin. He firmly refused to grant the girl's wish. He was persuaded that to do so would be to insure her own eternal ruin.
The passionate heart, the undisciplined temper, took fire at his flat refusal.
To the poor girl it seemed that the whole world was arrayed against her.
Why had the old priest saved her from death if she was to be immured forever, as in a living tomb, in this grim old convent? The sanguine youth and hope within her rose up in passionate protest.
She pleaded, and when entreaty failed, she flung down a passionate defiance. Go she would! Eliot Van Zandt needed her to deliver him from Mme. Lorraine's baneful power. Should she torture him, destroy him, while she who owed him so much forsook him? Ah, no, no!
The result was that the defiant, contumacious pupil was consigned to solitary confinement in a cell for the remainder of the day, until she should come to her senses and ask pardon of the priest and the good mother superior.
She flung herself down, sobbing, on the cold stone floor, too angry to repeat the prayers Father Quentin had recommended her to address to the saints. Her thoughts centered around Eliot Van Zandt in agonizing solicitude.