Unorna was left alone.  She could not sit still in her extreme anxiety.  It was agonising to think that the woman she longed to see was so near her, but that she could not, upon any reasonable pretext, go and knock at her door and see her and speak to her.  She felt also a terrible doubt as to whether she would recognise her, at first sight, as the same woman whose shadow had passed between herself and the Wanderer on that eventful day a month ago.  The shadow had been veiled, but she had a prescient consciousness of the features beneath the veil.  Nevertheless, she might be mistaken.  It would be necessary to seek her acquaintance by some excuse and endeavour to draw from her some portion of her story, enough to confirm Unorna’s suspicions, or to prove conclusively that they were unfounded.  To do this, Unorna herself needed all her strength and coolness, and she was glad when a lay sister entered the room bringing her evening meal.

There were moments when Unorna, in favourable circumstances, was able to sink into the so-called state of second sight, by an act of volition, and she wished now that she could close her eyes and see the face of the woman who was only separated from her by two or three walls.  But that was not possible in this case.  To be successful she would have needed some sort of guiding thread, or she must have already known the person she wished to see.  She could not command that inexplicable condition as she could dispose of her other powers, at all times and in almost all moods.  She felt that if she were at present capable of falling into the trance state at all, her mind would wander uncontrolled in some other direction.  There was nothing to be done but to have patience.

The lay sister went out.  Unorna ate mechanically what had been set before her and waited.  She felt that a crisis perhaps more terrible than that through which she had lately passed was at hand, if the stranger should prove to be indeed the Beatrice whom the Wanderer loved.  Her brain was in a whirl when she thought of being brought face to face with the woman who had been before her, and every cruel and ruthless instinct of her nature rose and took shape in plans for her rival’s destruction.

She opened her door, careless of the draught of frozen air that rushed in from the corridor.  She wished to hear the lady’s footstep when she left her room to go to the church, and she sat down and remained motionless, fearing lest her own footfall should prevent the sound from reaching her.  The heavy-toned bells began to ring, far off in the night.

At last it came, the opening of a door, the slight noise made by a light tread upon the pavement.  She rose quietly and went out, following in the same direction.  She could see nothing but a dark shadow moving before her towards the opposite end of the passage, farther and farther from the hanging lamp.  Unorna could hear her own heart beating as she followed, first to the right, then to the left.  There was