As her better mind now viewed it, she had doubly injured Herbert—­first in distrusting him; then by appealing from him to the compassion of strangers.

If the reply for which she had rashly asked was waiting for her at that moment—­if the mercy of the Mother Superior was ready to comfort and guide her—­what return could she make? how could she excuse herself from accepting what was offered in kindly reply to her own petition?  She had placed herself, for all she knew to the contrary, between two alternatives of ingratitude equally unendurable, equally degrading.  To feel this was to feel the suspense which, to persons of excitable temperament, is of all trials the hardest to bear.  The chambermaid was still in her room—­Sydney asked if the post-office was near to the hotel.

The woman smiled.  “Everything is near us, ma’am, in this little place.  Can we send to the post-office for you?”

Sydney wrote her initials.  “Ask, if you please, for a letter addressed in that way.”  She handed the memorandum to the chambermaid.  “Corresponding with her lover under her husband’s nose!” That was how the chambermaid explained it below stairs, when the porter remarked that initials looked mysterious.

The Mother Superior had replied.  Sydney trembled as she opened the letter.  It began kindly.

“I believe you, my child, and I am anxious to help you.  But I cannot correspond with an unknown person.  If you decide to reveal yourself, it is only right to add that I have shown your letter to the Reverend Father who, in temporal as in spiritual things, is our counselor and guide.  To him I must refer you, in the first instance.  His wisdom will decide the serious question of receiving you into our Holy Church, and will discover, in due time, if you have a true vocation to a religious life.  With the Father’s sanction, you may be sure of my affectionate desire to serve you.”

Sydney put the letter back in the envelope, feeling gratefully toward the Mother Superior, but determined by the conditions imposed on her to make no further advance toward the Benedictine community.

Even if her motive in writing to the convent had remained unchallenged, the allusions to the priest would still have decided her on taking this step.  The bare idea of opening her inmost heart, and telling her saddest secrets, to a man, and that man a stranger, was too repellent to be entertained for a moment.  In a few lines of reply, gratefully and respectfully written, she thanked the Mother Superior, and withdrew from the correspondence.

The letter having been closed, and posted in the hotel box, she returned to the sitting-room free from the one doubt that had troubled her; eager to show Herbert how truly she believed in him, how hopefully she looked to the future.

With a happy smile on her lips she opened the door.  She was on the point of asking him playfully if he had felt surprised at her long absence—­when the sight that met her eyes turned her cold with terror in an instant.