“I had my choice,” she answered vaguely. “Did ever a woman choose for the best? Avangel was no place for me.”
Pelleas eyed her somewhat sadly from his higher vantage. “The nun’s is a sorry life,” he said, “when her thoughts fly over the convent walls.”
A level kindness in the words seemed to loose her tongue like magic. Twelve long months had her sympathies been outraged, and her young desires crushed by the heel of a so-called godliness. Never had so kind a chance for the outpouring of her discontent come to her. Women love an honest grumble. In a moment all her bitterness found ready flight into the man’s ears.
“I hated it!” she said, "I hated it! Avangel had no hold on me. What were vigils, penitences, and long prayers to a girl? They made us kneel on stone, and sleep on boards. The chapel bell seemed to ring every minute of the day; we had vile food, and no liberty. It was Saint This, Saint That, from morning till night. We saw no men. We might never dress our hair; and, believe me, there were no mirrors. I had to go to a little pool in the garden to see my face.
“And they were so dull,—so dismal. No one ever laughed; no one ever told romances; all our legends were of pious things in petticoats. And what was the use of it all? Was any one ever a jot the better? I used to get into my cell and stamp. I felt like a corpse in a charnel-house, and the whole world seemed dead.”
Pelleas scanned her half smilingly, half sadly.
“I am sorry for your heart,” he said.
“Sorry! You needs must be when you are a soldier, with life in your ears like a clarion cry.”
“Life is a sorry ballad, Sister Igraine, unless we remember the Cross.”
“Ah, yes, I have all the saints in mind—dear souls; but then, Sir Pelleas, one cannot live on one’s knees. I was made to laugh and twinkle, and if such is sin, then a sorry nun am I.”