Her clothes were ugly and she longed to wear clothes made of beautiful cloth such as those worn by the Englishman. He had smiled and seemed pleased because she had dropped her sabot. His eyes were of a grey-brown shade as the river was after a great deal of rain when parts of the banks had been washed away; he looked as though he rarely smiled; yet he had smiled for her. She would remember that when she was being punished.

They had turned in through the gates and were crossing the path between the well-kept lawns. How cold it was inside the Convent! The bell was ringing. It was time for dejeuner. Melisande's heart beat very fast, for it had occurred to her that the punishment might result in her missing dejeuner, and she was very hungry. She was often hungry, but hungrier at this time of day than at any other. Petit dejeuner —bitter coffee and a twist of bread—was scarcely adequate, and it seemed hours since she had had it. But whatever the punishment is, she told herself, I shall think of the way he smiled at me and that he does not smile for everyone. She wondered what the young nun had thought when she was in the darkness with wall all about her—her cold dark tomb.

Sister Eugenie was beside her. "After dejeuner you will go to the sewing room and there Sister Emilie will tell you what your punishment will be."

After dejeuner I Melisande was almost rapturously happy. There was plenty of time before she need think of punishment; now she could remember the smile of the Englishman while she drank her cabbage soup and ate her piece of bread. She stood at the table, palms pressed together while Sister Therese said grace, and her eyes and thoughts were now on the steaming bowl before her. As they all took their seats she glanced quickly at Sister Therese at the top of the table and Sister Eugenie at the foot, and quickly looked away for fear they should see the triumph in her flashing green eyes.

The meal was over all too soon. Dumplings, which she loved, followed the cabbage soup; and it was only when she was eating her last mouthful that her fears returned.

Sister Therese was watching her. "Do not forget. To the sewing room."

She hated the sewing room and, as she went, she thought of the tedious hours, of fingers sore through sewing rough garments for children like herself, and shirts to be sold in the market square. On a dais was a large table where was laid out that altar cloth on which only the best needlewomen were allowed to work. It was an honour to sit at the table and work in gold and scarlet thread, instead of at the benches stitching ugly garments.

Sister Emilie said that to work on the dais was to work for God and the saints, but to work at the table was to work for mankind.

Melisande had shocked her once by saying that she would rather work for neither; although she loved the bright colours on the altar cloth she would like to wear dresses embroidered with them rather than have to sew for God and the saints.

"Sometimes," Sister Emilie had said, "I think you must be a very foolish or a very wicked girl."

"Perhaps I am both," was Melisande's ready answer, "for la Mere says that we are all wicked and all foolish ... all miserable sinners ... even the sisters and la Mere herself. ..."

Sister Emilie had been at a loss for words, as her fellow sisters often were with Melisande. "Don't you want to sit on the dais and work on the beautiful altar cloth?" she had asked.

"The needles prick my fingers just the same," Melisande had replied.

But now there would be no question of working on the altar cloth.

There would be some hideous task; and she would have to sit at the table and work and work until her back ached and her fingers were sore, to make up for breaking away from the crocodile and speaking to the Englishman.

"Come here," said Sister Emilie.

Melisande obeyed. Her eyes were lowered. It was no use smiling at Sister Emilie.

"You have misbehaved once more, I am sad to hear," she said. "Now you will sit at that table. Take the top shirt from the pile. You will remain there till you have finished it."

Melisande took the shirt. It was of the stiff stuff that she hated. She sat sewing; her stitches were big and uneven. There was blood on the shirt, for she had, of course, pricked her fingers. She carried out her plan and went over the delicious episode again and again.

Soon she was speaking her thoughts aloud. "At least it is not as bad as being walled up in the chapel."

"What was that?" asked Sister Emilie.

"I am sorry, ma soeur. I was thinking of the nun who had a lover and was walled up in the chapel."

Emilie was disturbed.

She said: "That is not the way to show your penitence. You must not speak of such things here ... in a holy convent."

"No, ma soeur"

There was silence. Melisande went on stitching, still thinking of the nun and her lover. It was worth while to stitch this hateful shirt for the sake of the day's adventure. Perhaps having a lover—since it must not be spoken of, and it was the exciting things of life which were forbidden—was so much more wonderful that it was even worth while being walled up in a chapel afterwards in the cold and dark, there to stay through the centuries.

In the cold bare room Therese and Eugenie stood before the table at which sat the Mother.

The Mother's hands were folded on her breast. It was a characteristic attitude when disturbed. She was sixty-three but she looked older; her face was wrinkled and almost colourless; her serenity was not easily disturbed over any matter other than that which concerned those whom she called her children ... the little ones who had been given into her care.

Eugenie spoke. She said: "Afa Mere, it is most alarming. The child purposefully did this thing. To take off her sabots —that was wickedness to start with, but to let one fall at the feet of this man ... deliberately! We do not know how to deal with such a matter."

"He is staying at the inn," said the Mother, shaking her head. "It is unwise."

"Mother, you think it is he?"

"I think, Sister Therese, it must be."

"But it was the child who made the encounter possible."

"Yes, yes, but he must have shown his interest in her in some way."

"There is something about the child," said Therese. "Yes, there is something."

"A wantonness," put in Eugenie.

"She is essentially of the world," said the Mother, and although she was silent for a while, her lips moved. She was talking to saints, the sisters knew; she would be seen gliding about the Convent, while her lips moved thus. All knew that she was praying to the saints. To whom did she pray now? wondered Therese. To Saint Christopher? Like the Christ-bearer, the Mother was seeking to carry a child across the bridgeless river, and like the saint she was finding the burden too much for her.

She looked up suddenly and said: "Be seated."

The Sisters sat and there was again silence, while all three continued to think of Melisande. She was thirteen. An impressionable age, thought Sister Therese, looking back over her life, an age when it was possible for the feet to be led along those paths which opened out to voluptuousness, to revelry and sin, winding on and on away from virtue and piety. Sister Eugenie, who had lived all her life in the Convent, was thinking that the simple solution was to whip the child and put her into solitary confinement until the Englishman left the town.

Thirteen! thought the Mother. I was thirteen fifty years ago. Then there had seemed to be security and peace. She saw herself in her parents' mansion near St. Germain; she saw the schoolroom and the governess; she saw the servants when they had begun to show fear in their eyes. They had locked up the house with great care at night. They had whispered together. "Did you hear shouting last night? What if they should come... . Hush, the little one listens." She recalled the gardens—the trees in bloom, the fountains playing; she remembered the day when her father and mother had come riding there in great haste. "Jeanne ... upstairs ... get your cloak... . There is no time to lose." The whispering of the servants, the anxious looks, the haste of her parents ... they were all like the ominous beating of drums that warned of death and danger. She had not understood then; she had run upstairs knowing only that that which they feared was about to come to pass. We are going to run away from it, she thought. We shall be safe now. But she was wrong. They did not run away. Before she was able to return to them there were shouts in the hall and those whom she thought of for years afterwards as the 'ugly people' were in the hall. She had peered through the banisters and had seen them take her father and mother; they were all over the house; nowhere was safe; nowhere was sacred. She heard the smashing of glass, the shouts, the screams, the drunken voices singing the song which she would never forget.

"Allons, enfants de la patrie, Lejour de gloire est arrive. Contre nous, de la tyrannie Le couteau sanglant est leve... ."

And they had taken her beloved parents away to the Place de Greve where many heads were falling to that couteau. She had escaped with her governess who had taken her across the gardens to the copse; and the ugly shrieking people had not come that way. Little Jeanne and her governess had ridden through the darkness to the Convent Notre Dame Marie; and there she had stayed and lived ever since, shut away from horror, shut away from fear. That had happened nearly fifty years ago; and at the time she had been the same age as the little Melisande.