When the door had closed on me I drew a deep breath, feeling as if I had come out of the Holy of Holies, and when I reached the Piazza of St. Peter's and came again upon the sight and sound of common things—the cabs and electric cars—it was the same as if I had suddenly descended from heaven to earth.
After my audience with the Pope, following on the Reverend Mother's story, all my objections to marriage had gone, and I wished to tell my father so, but an opportunity did not arise until late the same night and then it was he who was the first to speak.
Being in good spirits, after a dinner to the ecclesiastics, he said, as soon as his guests had gone—speaking in the tone of one who believed he was doing a great thing for me—
"Mary, matters are not quite settled yet, but you might as well know right here what we're trying to fix up for you."
Then he told me.
I was to marry the young Lord Raa!
I was stunned. It was just as if the power of thought had been smitten out of me.
TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER
That night, and during the greater part of the following day, I felt, without quite knowing why, as if I were living under the dark cloud of a gathering thunderstorm. All my fear of the world, and my desire to escape from it, had fallen upon me afresh. Hence it was not altogether by the blind leading of fate that half an hour before Ave Maria I entered the church of the Convent which the Reverend Mother had given me the name of.