The Saturday night before the final day had come, and she lay
feverishly nervous in her narrow little bed, wondering with
wide-eyed fear at the morrow. Pale-eyed Sister Dominica and
Sister Francesca were whispering together in the dark silence,
and Sister Josepha's ears pricked up as she heard her name.

"She is not well, poor child," said Francesca. "I fear the life
is too confining."

"It is best for her," was the reply. "You know, sister, how hard
it would be for her in the world, with no name but Camille, no
friends, and her beauty; and then--"

Sister Josepha heard no more, for her heart beating tumultuously
in her bosom drowned the rest. Like the rush of the bitter salt
tide over a drowning man clinging to a spar, came the complete
submerging of her hopes of another life. No name but Camille,
that was true; no nationality, for she could never tell from whom
or whence she came; no friends, and a beauty that not even an
ungainly bonnet and shaven head could hide. In a flash she
realised the deception of the life she would lead, and the cruel
self-torture of wonder at her own identity. Already, as if in
anticipation of the world's questionings, she was asking herself,
"Who am I? What am I?"

The next morning the sisters du Sacre Coeur filed into the
Cathedral at High Mass, and bent devout knees at the general
confession. "Confiteor Deo omnipotenti," murmured the priest;
and tremblingly one little sister followed the words, "Je