"This is Saint Margaret's, sir. Eight shillings, sir, if you please."
Paul dismissed the cabman and rang the bell; the hollow tongue sent out a startling reverberation into the night. The sky to the east was breaking; thin streaks of a lighter gray foretold the dawn.
The door opened and the iron gate swung back. A sister carrying an open oil lamp motioned them to enter.
"Can I see the superior?" said Paul.
"She is newly risen," said the sister, and she fixed the lamp to a bracket in the wall and went away. They were left in a bare, chill, echoing hall.
The next moment a line of nuns in their coifs passed close by them with quick and silent steps. At that gray hour they had risen for matins. Some of them were pale and emaciated, and one that was palest and most worn went by with drooping head and hands that inlaced her rosary. Paul stepped back a pace. The nun moved steadily onward with the rest. Never a sign of recognition, never an upward glance, only the quivering of a lip—but it was his mother!
He, too, dropped his head, and his own lips trembled. The mother superior was standing with them before he was aware. For an instant his voice was suspended, but he told her at length that a great calamity had befallen them, and begged her to take his wife for a time into her care.
"Charity is our office," said the mother, when she had heard his story. "Come, my sister, the Church is peace. Your poor laden soul may put off its load while you are here."
Paul begged to be allowed a moment to say farewell, and the good mother left them together.
Then from an inner chamber came the solemn tones of an organ and the full voices of a choir. The softened harmonies seemed to float into their torn hearts, and they wept. The gray dawn was creeping in. It blurred the red light of the lamp.