"Peace!" echoed Mr. Cleveland. "No, child, don't let your imagination run away with that idea. It is a false one. No woman, entering a convent in the frame of mind you seem to be entertaining, could expect peace, or find it."
"Any way, I should feel more at rest: I should have to bear life then, you know. And, oh, I was trying to do so: I was indeed trying!"
Thoroughly put out, the Rector made no comment. Perhaps would not trust himself to make any.
"I suppose there are no such things as Protestant convents, or sisterhoods," she went on, "that receive poor creatures who have no longer any place in this world?"
"Not to my knowledge," sharply spoke Mr. Cleveland, as he jumped off the stile. "It is time we went home, Adela."
They walked away side by side. Gaining the Rectory—a large, straggling, red-brick building, its old walls covered with time-honoured ivy—Adela ascended to her chamber, and shut herself in with her grief.
How scornfully her husband must despise her!—despise her for her past shame and sin; despise her in her present contemptible humiliation, she reflected, a low moan escaping her—he so pure and upright in all his ways, so good and generous and noble! Oh that she could hide to the end from him and from the world!
Lifting her trembling hands, her despairing face, Adela breathed a faint petition that the Most High would be pleased to vouchsafe to her somewhat of His heavenly comfort, or take her out of the tribulation that she could so hardly battle with.