“Indeed, it is not!” she answered hotly. “I have not a withered face, a jaw like a knife, and such eyes!”
“I tell thee, that”—Sister Catalina pointed, that there be no further mistake—“that is thou! This is the stranger.”
“Stranger?” laughed Rose; “then we know thee not!”
It was Sister Catalina’s turn to flame with anger. “It is not true!” she cried, stamping her foot with a grotesque parody of infantile rage. “I look like that! I know better! I remember as if it were to-day how I looked in the great mirror in my father’s house!”
“I tell thee naught but the truth,” exclaimed Sister Teresa, now quite beside herself. “Give me the picture!” She snatched at the print. A tussle ensued, punctuated by the sharp sound of a slap as they fought for the apple of discord.
Sister Catalina being the youngest, and, owing to her daily labors in the garden, the most active of the trio, obtained possession of the photograph, but not till, with a desperate push, she had thrust Sister Teresa so sharply forward that she fell panting against the iron gate. The force of the impact made the rusty iron clang, and Sister Teresa sank to the ground with a faint cry.
Not till then could Sister Eulalia master her fright and nervousness sufficiently to enter the arena. With outstretched hands, forgetful of her crutch, she advanced to the center of the patio. Her first words were sufficiently arresting to bring a sudden cessation of hostilities.
“Oh, my sisters!” she cried, “oh, my sisters—the Fiend! The Fiend!”
Involuntarily three pairs of terror-stricken eyes looked about. The sun-flooded courtyard held no unfamiliar shape; the sky was undarkened by any dreadful wing. No fateful roar broke the morning hush. But Sister Eulalia had sunk to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“We were warned,” she shrilled, “but we were not proof against him. How should we know him in the guise of a holy man?” The listeners gasped. “Look, oh, my sisters, what has happened. I—even I, whom God had blessed with blindness that I might not see—I complained aloud. Envy and hatred were in my heart that ye saw marvels while I lay in darkness. I am ashamed—I am ashamed!”