"
For a few moments I walked up and down the room; then I asked, "How did
Mother Anastasia come to be the Mother Superior?"
"I have been told," said Walkirk, "that she gave most of the money for
the founding of the institution, and it was natural enough that she
should be placed at the head. I have an idea that she would not have
been willing to enter the House except as its head."
"It is about four years since it was established, is it not?" I asked;
and Walkirk assured me that I was correct.
All this information ranged itself on the side of conviction. She was
just the woman to try a thing of this kind for a stated time; she was
just the woman not to like it; and she was just the woman whose soul
could not be prevented from whispering that the gates of the bright
world were opening before her. But why should her soul whisper this to
me? The whole matter troubled me very much.
I determined not to base any action upon what had thus forced itself
upon my mind. I would wait. I would see what would happen next. I would
persist in my determination never to give up Sylvia. And I will mention
that there was a little point in connection with her which at this time
greatly annoyed me: whenever I thought of her, she appeared before me in
the gray dress of a sister, and not as I had seen her on the island.
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