had an absurd feeling of nervousness and cursed Locke a dozen times
before he reached the convent. He was embarrassed with the awkward
situation in which he found himself--just how awkward he seemed
only now fully to appreciate. The more he thought of it, the less
he liked it. The coming interview with the Mother Superior was not
the least of his troubles. The promise of the morning had not been
maintained, overhead the sky was leaden, and a high wind drove rain
in sharp splashes against the glass of the cab. The pavements were
running with water and the leafless trees in the avenues swayed and
creaked dismally. The appearance of the streets was chill and
depressing. Craven shivered. He thought of the warmth and sunshine
that he had left in Japan. The dreariness of the present outlook
contrasted sufficiently with the gay smiling landscape, the riotous
wealth of colour, and the scent-laden air of the land of his
recollections. A feeling almost of nostalgia came to him. But with
the thought came also a vision--a little still body lying on silken
cushions; a small pale face with fast shut eyes, the long lashes a
dusky fringe against the ice-cold cheek. The vision was terribly
distinct, horribly real--not a recollection only, as on the morning
that he had found her dead--and he waited, with the sweat pouring
down his face, for the closed eyes to open and reveal the agony he
had read in them that night, when he had torn her clinging hands away
and left her. The faint aroma of the perfume she had used was in his
nostrils, choking him. The slender limbs seemed to pulsate into life,
the little breasts to stir perceptibly, the parted lips to tremble.
He could not define the actual moment of the change but, as he bent
forward, with hands close gripped, all at once he found himself
looking straight into the tortured grey eyes--for a second only.
Then the vision faded, and he was leaning back in the cab wiping
the moisture from his forehead. God, would it never leave him! It