‘Amen!’ said Oswald, himself feeling much more pious than usual. ‘I want it badly enough——’
‘And I’ll tell Miss Burchell to give Emily your love——’
‘On second thoughts,’ said Oswald, astutely, ‘it will be better not to say anything about it. The Sister Superior might not like a stranger to send messages.’
‘That is very true,’ said the lay Sister, perceiving all at once that she too might have come in for a rebuke; and after this she ran on into sundry communications about Sister Catherine who was newly arrived and not quite up to the work. ‘For them that know such ladies as Sister Mary Jane and Miss Burchell is naturally particular,’ said the porteress.
‘Very naturally,’ said Oswald, with fervour. He asked her to put a sovereign for him into the poor-box at the chapel door, and then sent her off well pleased, while he turned back in great haste to prepare for his going. Here was his opportunity at last.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE SUPREME MOMENT.
It was a beautiful morning in June when Agnes started from the House with her little charge, who was going to the Convent Sanatorium at Limpet Bay. She scarcely knew so soon as the porteress did, who had thus fortunately warned the eager lover—for Sister Mary Jane had thought it best to screen Agnes from all risks, and informed her only upon the day before the expedition.
‘You want a little change; it will do you good,’ the Sister Superior said, pinching the girl’s pale cheek. ‘I thought we should have had to send you home; but a little breath of sea air will do you good.’
‘Oh, I do not require to be sent home!’ Agnes said, with a sudden flush of fright. To go home was far from being what she desired. Indeed, she did not quite like to leave the House and the girls’ procession even for one day. The pale little girl who was her companion was excited and noisy with joy; but as she took her seat in a corner of a second-class carriage Agnes felt less exhilarated than depressed, though there was a curious jumble of feelings in her mind. The motion was pleasant, the fresh air—after the languid breezes of London—revived and refreshed the country-born girl. Ah! green fields still looked just so, the birds sang as of old, only there was something in the breeze and the sunshine and the birds which she never had known before—something—which suggested a want, a void, and yet a hope. She would not say to herself what that void was, but yet felt that it was strange, looking out from the window of the carriage, not to see one face which she always saw when she looked out. Very strange—and yet, when she reminded herself, so much more strange would it have been had she seen it. It was quite early when they started; the fresh morning lights, still so soft in their early brightness, caught the dews lying still here and there in the corners. The child prattled on for an hour or so, then got tired, and leaned her head against Agnes, and went to sleep. Agnes was glad. It saved her from the necessity of answering, and allowed her to plunge into all the sweet enchantment of dreams. There is a time in most lives when one’s own thoughts are more entertaining, more absorbing, than the highest fiction, and when poetry is nothing to the vague glory of musing which envelopes the young soul like an atmosphere of its own. This was what Agnes had come to now. She supposed she was thinking, but she was no more thinking than the pale child, whose soft little sickly cheek leant up against her shoulder with such confiding ease. The child slept, being sick and weakly; the girl dreamed, being young, and feeling the sweetness of life to her very fingertips. There was nobody to disturb them, nothing but the wind of their rapid going, the rush of motion, the vision of green fields and trees flitting past, the clouds in the sky sailing over them. In such circumstances even a dusty railway journey grows poetical. The black poke bonnet and the conventual cloak did not make it less so, though, alas! they made those thoughts, when she suddenly woke up to a consciousness of them, very guilty and dreadful to Agnes. But for this morning at least, once in a way, she had escaped from the duties of life, and the soft haze which crept over her seemed more allowable during this interval in which it was evident she could do nothing else. She had her duty with her in the shape of the little invalid by her side, to whom Providence had sent this soothing medicine of sleep: then was not Agnes free? Something as subduing as sleep itself, and more sweet than dreams, brought a film over her soft eyes. It was only a second-class carriage on a dusty railway, but one wonders if in any human paradise ever dreamt by poets there could be anything more sweet.