“Ah! you will leave this tomb—­you, who are my life!  You belonged to me; you were not free to give yourself—­not even to God.  Did you not promise to sacrifice all to the least of my commands?  Will you now think me worthy to claim that promise, if I tell you what I have done for your sake?  I have sought you through the whole world.  For five years you have been the thought of every instant, the occupation of every hour, of my life.  My friends—­friends all-powerful as you know—­have helped me to search the convents of France, Spain, Italy, Sicily, America.  My love has deepened with every fruitless search.  Many a long journey I have taken on a false hope.  I have spent my life and the strong beatings of my heart about the walls of cloisters.  I will not speak to you of a fidelity unlimited.  What is it?—­nothing compared to the infinitude of my love!  If in other days your remorse was real, you cannot hesitate to follow me now.”

“You forget that I am not free.”

“The duke is dead,” he said hastily.

Sister Theresa colored.  “May Heaven receive him!” she said, with quick emotion:  “he was generous to me.  But I did not speak of those ties:  one of my faults was my willingness to break them without scruple for you.”

“You speak of your vows,” cried the general, frowning.  “I little thought that anything would weigh in your heart against our love.  But do not fear, Antoinette; I will obtain a brief from the Holy Father which will absolve your vows.  I will go to Rome; I will petition every earthly power; if God himself came down from heaven I—­”

“Do not blaspheme!”

“Do not fear how God would see it!  Ah!  I wish I were as sure that you will leave these walls with me; that to-night—­to-night, you would embark at the feet of these rocks.  Let us go to find happiness!  I know not where—­at the ends of the earth!  With me you will come back to life, to health—­in the shelter of my love!”

“Do not say these things,” replied the Sister; “you do not know what you now are to me.  I love you better than I once loved you.  I pray to God for you daily.  I see you no longer with the eyes of my body.  If you but knew, Armand, the joy of being able, without shame, to spend myself upon a pure love which God protects!  You do not know the joy I have in calling down the blessings of heaven upon your head.  I never pray for myself:  God will do with me according to his will.  But you—­at the price of my eternity I would win the assurance that you are happy in this world, that you will be happy in another throughout the ages.  My life eternal is all that misfortunes have left me to give you.  I have grown old in grief; I am no longer young or beautiful.  Ah! you would despise a nun who returned to be a woman; no sentiment, not even maternal love, could absolve her.  What could you say to me that would shake the unnumbered reflections my heart has made in five long years,—­and which have changed it, hollowed it, withered it?  Ah!  I should have given something less sad to God!”