“Mother!” broke from Hector hoarsely, for her terrible humility appalled him. It was as though she had bared her scarred shoulders in his sight, and bent her frail strength to the scourge. She silenced him by a gesture, and continued, in a whisper so faint that it barely reached his ears:
“But if you can—atone!”
The veil was lifted, the sunken eyes met Hector’s.... What infinite tenderness shone in their dark gray depths. She said, in the voice that fluttered like a cobweb in the wind: “For there is but one road to peace, and that is the Way of Expiation. My feet have stumbled amidst its thorns for many years now.... Farewell! Pray for me! Tell your father I——”
Dunoisse had no more words of her. The little figure had swayed and wavered, the watchful Sister in attendance had stepped forwards and thrown an arm about it and pulled the curtain-rope with her disengaged hand. And the black woolen drapery had fallen, with a rattling of metal rings,—and Dunoisse as he stumbled from the parlor, blinded by rushing tears, knew that he had looked his last, in this world, upon his mother....
But the details of that brief meeting remained as bitten in with acid on the memory of the son. An elderly woman, who served the Sisters as portress of the Convent’s outer gate, contributed a touch or two to the unforgettable picture; speaking, in tones of genuinely affectionate reverence, as she guided the stranger, by the light of the evil-smelling tallow candle in her iron lantern, through divers stone-flagged passages previously traversed, of Sister Térèse de Saint François.
“Who has been our Mother Prioress now ten years, and a holier and wiser never ruled the Convent. And how she wept, dear, humble soul! when the decision of the Chapter was made known to her at Vienna. She implored the Mother-General, upon her knees, to spare her the shame of being sent back to rule her superiors in piety and obedience ... but no! it had to be.... Thenceforth—until her strength gave out—the tasks that were too heavy for the most energetic were performed by the Mother-Prioress, who was the weakest of all. And to this day, when compelled to rebuke a sister for a fault, she will first beg her forgiveness; or, when any specially heavy penance will be enjoined upon another by the Father-Director, she will meet such a one as she comes from the confessional and whisper: ‘Tell me what it is, so that I may perform it with you!...’ One might truly say our Mother has a zest for mortification, and an appetite for fasting that is never satisfied.” The portress, whose rosy cheeks and plump figure testified to a discreet enjoyment of the good things of the world, sighed and shook her black-capped head as she added: “The gnädiger Herr knows that Saints are not made without suffering. Our Lord decreed it should be so. And—come the Last Day—if I can catch on to the skirt of our Reverend Mother’s habit—I dare to say I shall stand a better chance than most. Good-night, gnädiger Herr!—or rather good-morning!—for in another hour it will be day.” And the portress curtsied Dunoisse out into the clammy grayness that heralded dawn, and closed and locked and barred the Convent door. And as the stars paled and the wan moon reeled northwards as though sickened at the spectacle of all the deeds that are done by men under Night’s sable canopy, Dunoisse and Remorse rode back through the shadowy forest roads, to the inn of “The Heron,” where waited Henriette.
She had not been to bed. She had paced the single guest-room of the posting-house all night, waiting in passionate impatience for her lover’s return. When she heard his step upon the uncarpeted stair, she ran to the door and opened it, and shut it when he entered; and threw herself before it, and opened the flood-gates of her fury, that had been pent up all those hours....
“So!... You have returned!... I presume I am expected to be grateful! I, who have spent a night of horror in this miserable place with a pair of frightened servants for my sole protectors and companions....”