The academy buildings, as has been explained before this, were situated on the opposite side of the court-yard from the asylums and entirely cut off from communication with them.

Salome, devoted to her duties in the Infants’ Asylum, was more completely secluded from the world than even the cloistered nuns themselves; for the nuns were the teachers of the academy, and in daily communication with their pupils and frequent correspondence with their patrons, saw and heard much of the busy life without.

So the weeks passed slowly into months, and the winter into spring, yet nothing more was seen or heard of the Duke of Hereward.

Salome lost the habit of looking for him, and gradually recovered her tranquility.  In the work to which she had consecrated herself—­the care of helpless and destitute infancy—­she grew almost happy.

Already she seemed as dead to the world as though the “black vail” had fallen like a pall over her head.  No newspapers ever drifted into the asylum, nor did any visitor come to bring intelligence of the good or evil of the life beyond the convent walls.

Her year of probation was passing away.  At its close she would take the white vail and enter upon the second stage of her chosen vocation—­her year of novitiate—­at the end of which she would assume the black vail of the cloistered nun, which would seal her fate.

She knew that before taking that final step she must make some disposition of that vast inheritance which, in her flight from her home, she had left without one word of explanation or instruction.  She was assured that her fortune was in the hands of honest men, and there she was content to leave it for the present.  She had in her possession about a thousand pounds in money and several thousand pounds in diamonds—­ample means for self-support and alms-giving.

And so she was satisfied for the present to leave her financial affairs as they were, until the time should come when it would be absolutely necessary for her to give attention to them.

Meanwhile, had she forgotten him who had once been the idol of her worship?

Ah, no! however diligently her eyes, her hands, her feet were employed in the service of the little children she loved so tenderly, her thoughts were with him.  She loved him still!  It seemed to her at once the sin and the curse of her life that she loved him still.  She prayed daily to be delivered from “inordinate and sinful affections,” but in this case prayer seemed of little use; for the more she prayed the more she loved and trusted him.  It was a mystery she could not make out.

So the spring bloomed into summer, and the world outside became so disturbed and turbulent with “wars and rumors of wars,” that its tumult was heard even within the peaceful convent sanctuary.

The news of the abdication of Her Most Catholic Majesty, Isabella II of Spain, fell like a thunderbolt upon the little community of the faithful in the convent; and nowhere, in the political conclaves of Prussia or of France, was the Spanish succession discussed with more intensity of interest than among the simple sisterhood of St. Rosalie.