“Wait one instant, madame,” I said, feeling that to enact my part thoroughly I ought to attempt to make some defense of Nina’s conduct; “permit me to say a word!  My fiancee is very young and thoughtless.  I really cannot think that her very innocent parting caress to me had anything in it that was meant to purposely annoy you.”

The nun glanced at me—­her eyes flashed disdainfully.

“You think it was all affection for you, no doubt, signor? very natural supposition, and—­I should be sorry to undeceive you.”

She paused a moment and then resumed: 

“You seem an earnest man—­may be you are destined to be the means of saving Nina; I could say much—­yet it is wise to be silent.  If you love her do not flatter her; her overweening vanity is her ruin.  A firm, wise, ruling master-hand may perhaps—­who knows?” She hesitated and sighed, then added, gently, “Farewell, signor!  Benedicite!” and making the sign of the cross as I respectfully bent my head to receive her blessing, she passed noiselessly from the room.

One moment later, and a lame and aged lay-sister came to escort me to the gate.  As I passed down the stone corridor a side door opened a very little way, and two fair young faces peeped out at me.  For an instant I saw four laughing bright eyes; I heard a smothered voice say, “Oh! c’est un vieux papa!” and then my guide, who though lame was not blind, perceived the opened door and shut it with an angry bang, which, however, did not drown the ringing merriment that echoed from within.  On reaching the outer gates I turned to my venerable companion, and laying four twenty-franc pieces in her shriveled palm, I said: 

“Take these to the reverend mother for me, and ask that mass may be said in the chapel to-morrow for the repose of the soul of him whose name is written here.”

And I gave her Guido Ferrari’s visiting-card, adding in lower and more solemn tones: 

“He met with a sudden and unprepared death.  Of your charity, pray also for the man who killed him!”

The old woman looked startled, and crossed herself devoutly; but she promised that my wishes should be fulfilled, and I bade her farewell and passed out, the convent gates closing with a dull clang behind me.  I walked on a few yards, and then paused, looking back.  What a peaceful home it seemed; how calm and sure a retreat, with the white Noisette roses crowning its ancient gray walls!  Yet what embodied curses were pent up in there in the shape of girls growing to be women; women for whom all the care, stern training and anxious solicitude of the nuns would be unavailing; women who would come forth from even that abode of sanctity with vile natures and animal impulses, and who would hereafter, while leading a life of vice and hypocrisy, hold up this very strictness of their early education as proof of their unimpeachable innocence and virtue!  To such, what lesson is learned by the daily example