Perhaps it was some premonition of approaching death that made her, always gracious, always infinitely kind, untiring in helpful deeds, move about among the sick that day, with such a sorrowful-sweet tenderness for them in her noble face and in her gentle touch, and in that wood-dove's voice of hers, that they spoke of it long afterwards with bated breath. A perfume as of rare incense was wafted from the folds of her veil, they said, and a pale aureole of light shone about her white-banded forehead, and her eyes—— Ah! who that met their look could ever forget those eyes?
It was before twilight when she left the Hospital and went to the Convent, a tall, upright, mantled and hooded figure, stepping through the heavy rain that had fallen since noon, under a quaint monster of a cotton umbrella with ribs of ancient whale,—Tragedy carrying Farce.
It was not the custom to linger in the neighbourhood of the Convent, even among those who were most indifferent to shot and shell. No one was visible in its vicinity, except one burly, bushy-bearded, dark-skinned man in tan-cords and a moleskin jacket. He lounged against a bent and twisted lamp-post, near the broken entrance-gates, cutting up a lump of something that might have been cake-tobacco upon his broad, thick palm with a penknife.
She passed him as she went in. His slouched hat made shadow for his eyes. But so curiously shallow and flat and rusty pale were they against the purplish-brown of the full-blooded, bearded face, that their sharp, sly, sudden look as she went by was as though the adder-fangs had slashed at her. She knew it was the man who had written those two letters. And something else she knew, but did not dare to admit her knowledge even to herself as yet.
She mustered all her forces to meet what was coming as she went up the broken stairs. The wind and the long, driving lances of the rain came at her through the gaps in the walls. The sky was a driving hurry of muddy vapours. The grey hills were blotted out by mist and fog. Long flashes of white fire leaped from them, and the heavy boom of cannon followed. Then all would be still again. She passed down the whitewashed, matted, sodden corridor, and drew out the heavy key of the chapel door from a deep pocket under her black habit, and went in.
Rain beat in here through jagged holes in the soft brickwork and poured through the broken roof, whose rubbish littered the floor. Whiter squares on the whitewashed walls, sodden now with damp, and peeling, showed where the pictures of the Stations of the Cross had hung; with them all draperies had been stripped away and hidden. The crimson-velvet-covered ropes that had done duty instead of altar-rails had been removed, their brass supports unscrewed from the floor. The naked altar-stone was covered with fragments of cheap stained-glass from the little east window of which the Sisters had been so proud. The Tabernacle gaped empty; sandy, reddish-grey dust filled the tiny piscina, and lay thick upon the altar-stone and the shallow wooden altar-steps, and wherever else the rain had not reached it to turn it into yellow mud.
Why had she come here? Because she felt as though the Presence that had housed under the veil of the Consecrated Element were still guarding Its desecrated home. And near the door of the tiny sacristy dangled the rope communicating with the bell that hung, as yet uninjured, in the little wooden cupola upon the roof. The bell could be rung, should need arise. She did not formulate in thought what need. But the recollection of those poisonous adder-eyes stirred even in that proud, dauntless woman's bosom a cold and creeping fear. And when she heard the padding, stealthy footsteps whose sound seemed burned in upon her brain, traversing the soaked matting of the corridor, she caught her breath, and an icy dew of anguish moistened her shuddering flesh.
Then slowly, cautiously, the door opened. He came in, shutting it noiselessly after him. It was the man she had seen loafing by the lamp-post. And, standing tall and forbidding on the bare altar's carpetless steps, she threw out her white hand in a quick, imperious gesture, forbidding his nearer approach.
For an instant the dignity and authority of the tall, black-robed figure gave pause even to Bough. Then he touched his wide-brimmed felt hat to her with a civility that was the very essence of insolence, and took it off and shook the wet from it, and dropped it back upon his head again. He leaned against the wall by the door where there was a little holy-water font, and stuck his gross thumbs in his belt, and waited for her to begin. Always he followed that plan when the woman was angry. Nothing remained for any bloke to teach Bough about the sex. You let her row a bit, and when she had done herself out, you put in what you had got to say. That was Bough's way with them always.
"You have written letters to me and followed me."