The guests of Hercules

								

reminded her. "You know----"
"Yes, I know. It was the eleventh hour. Another week, and you would have
taken your vows. Oh, I don't mean what I said, dear. I'm glad you're
going--thankful. You hadn't the vocation. It would have killed you."
"No. For here they make it hard for novices on purpose, so that they may
know the worst there is to expect, and be sure they're strong enough in
body and heart. I wasn't fit. I feared I wasn't----"
"You weren't--that is, your body and heart are fitted for a different
life. You'll be happy, very happy."
"I wonder?" Mary said, in a whisper.
"Of course you will. You'll tell me so when we meet again, out in my
world that will be your world, too. I wish I were going with you now,
and I could, of course. Only I had to beg the pater so hard to let me
come here, I'd be ashamed to cable him, that I wanted to get away before
the six months were up. He wouldn't understand how different everything
is because I'm going to lose you."
"In a way, you would have lost me if--if I'd stayed, and--everything had
been as I expected."
"I know. They've let you be with me more as a novice than you could be
as a professed nun. Still, you'd have been under the same roof. I could
have seen you often. But I am glad. I'm not thinking of myself. And
we'll meet just as soon as we can, when my time's up here. Father's
coming back to his dear native Fifeshire to fetch me, and I'll make him
take me to you, wherever you are, or else you'll visit me; better still.
But it seems a long time to wait, for I really did come back here to
be a 'parlour boarder,' a heap more to see you than for any other
reason. And, besides, there's another thing. Only I hardly know how to
say it, or whether I dare say it at all."
Sister Rose looked suddenly anxious, as if she were afraid of something
that might follow. "What is it?" she asked quickly, almost sharply. "You
must tell me."
"Why, it's nothing to tell--exactly. It's only this: I'm worried.
I'm glad you're not going to be a nun all your life, dear;
delighted--enchanted. You're given back to me. But--I worry because I
can't help feeling that I've got something to do with the changing of
your mind so suddenly; that if ever you should regret anything--not that
you will, but if you should--you might blame me, hate me, perhaps."
"I never shall do either, whatever happens," the novice said, earnestly
and gravely. She did not look at her friend as she spoke, though they
were so nearly of the same height as they walked, their arms linked
together, that they could gaze straight into one another's eyes.
Instead, she looked up at the sky, through the groined gray ceiling of
tree-branches, as if offering a vow. And seeing her uplifted profile
with its pure features and clear curve of dark lashes, Peter thought how
beautiful she was, of a beauty quite unearthly, and perhaps unsuited to
the world. With a pang, she wondered if such a girl would not have been