"How much did Merry tell you?" she asked, faintly, for the older woman
looked so frail and pure that it seemed impossible that she knew the
worst.

"My dear, she told me--nothing. Her letter said that she wanted to tell
me things--things that she could not tell to God"--Angela unconsciously
touched her cross--"but there was no time. No time."

"There are things that women cannot tell to God, Sister. Things that
they can only tell to some women!"

A bitterness that she could not control shook Doris's voice. She shrank
from touching the exquisite detachment of Sister Angela by the truth,
and yet she must have as much sympathy as possible and, certainly,
coöperation.

"Sister, this child should never have been born!"

The words reached where former words had failed. A flush touched
Angela's white face--it was like sunrise on snow. Then, after a pause:

"Did--Meredith--think that?" A growing sternness gave Doris hope that
she might be saved the details that were like poison in her blood.

"Yes. Protected by--by what is law--George Thornton----"

But Angela raised her thin, transparent hand commandingly. It was as if
she were staying the torrents of wrong and shame that threatened to
deluge all that she had gained by her life of renunciation and