“You think I shall end in a convent, Evelyn?”

Evelyn did not answer, and; not knowing exactly what to say next, Louise spoke of the convent garden.

“You always used to be fond of flowers.  I suppose a great part of your time is spent in gardening?”

An angry colour rose into Evelyn’s cheek.

“You don’t wish me,” she said, “to talk about myself?  You think—­ Never mind, I don’t care what you think about me.”

Louise assured her that she was mistaken; and in the middle of a long discourse Evelyn’s thoughts seemed suddenly to break away, and she spoke to Louise of the greenhouse which she had made that winter, asking her if she would like to come to see it with her.

“A great deal of it was built with my own hands, Sister Mary John and I. You don’t know her yet; she is our organist, and an excellent one.”

At that moment Evelyn laid her hand on Louise’s arm, and a light seemed to burst into her face.

“Listen!” she said, “listen to the bird!  Don’t you hear him?”

“Hear what, dear?”

“The bird in the branches singing the song that leads Siegfried to Brunnhilde.”

“A bird singing Wagner?”

“Well, what more natural than that a bird should sing his own song?”

“But no bird—­” A look of wonder, mingled with fear, came into Louise’s face.

“If you listen, Louise.”  In the silence of the wood Louise heard somebody whistling Wagner’s music.  “Don’t you hear it?”

Louise did not answer at once.  Had she caught some of Evelyn’s madness... or was she in an enchanted garden?

“It is a boy in the park, or one of the nuns.”

“Nuns don’t whistle, and the common is hundreds of yards away.  And no boy on the common knows the bird music from ‘Siegfried’?  Listen, Louise, listen!  There it goes, note for note.  Francis is singing well to-day.”

“Francis!”

“Look, look, you can see him!  Now are you convinced?”

And the wonder in Louise’s face passed into a look of real fear, and she said: 

“Let us go away.”

“But why won’t you listen to Francis?  None of my birds sings as he does.  Let me tell you, Louise—­”

But Louise’s step hastened.

“Stop!  Don’t you hear the Sword motive?  That is Aloysius.”

Louise stopped for a moment, and, true enough, there was the Sword motive whistled from the branches of a sycamore.  And Louise began to doubt her own sanity.

“You do hear him, I can see you do.”

“What does all this mean?” Louise said to the Reverend Mother, drawing her aside.  “The birds, the birds, Mother Superior, the birds!”

“What birds?”

“The birds singing the motives of ‘The Ring.’”

“You mean Teresa’s bullfinches, Mademoiselle Helbrun?  Yes, they whistle very well.”

“But they whistle the motives of ‘The Ring!’”

“Ah! she taught them.”