I had the idea of the convent where Eileen O’Connor lodged. There was a sanctuary. Those nuns were vowed to Christian charity. They would understand and have pity.
“Yes,” said Brand, and he called to the driver.
We drove hard to the convent, and Brand was out of the car before it stopped, and rang the bell with such a tug that we heard it jangling loudly in the courtyard.
It seemed long before the little wicket opened and a woman’s voice said, “Qui est la?”
Brand gave his name and said, “Open quickly, ma sour. We have a woman here who is ill.”
The gate was opened, and Brand and I lifted out the girl, who was still unconscious, but moaning slightly, and carried her into the courtyard, and thence inside the convent to the whitewashed passage where I had listened so long to the Reverend Mother telling me of the trial scene.
It was the Reverend Mother who came now, with two of her nuns, while the little portress stood by, clasping her hands.
“An accident?” said the Reverend Mother. “How was the poor child hurt?”
She bent over the girl, Marthe—Pierre Nesle’s sister, as I remembered with an added pity—pulled my Burberry from her face and shoulders and glanced at the bedraggled figure there.
“Her hair has been cut off,” said the old nun. “That is strange! There are the marks of finger-nails on her shoulder. What violence was it, then?”