When she reached the pool, Isabel did not cross the stepping-stones. Halting some distance from the brawling waterfall, and hardly waiting for Antonio to approach her, she began: "We have had many long talks at this pool. To-day's talk will be short. Surely I have crawled to you enough on my hands and knees, and I will do it no more." Antonio said nothing. "There's not an hour to lose," she went on. "If you and I are going to do the right thing, I must tell Mrs. Baxter to stop the packing at once. You jump! You turn pale. I suppose you're shocked to hear me call it the right thing. I can't help it. I must speak the truth. It is the right thing. And the opposite thing is not only wrong; it's wicked, it's blasphemous, it's a crime. No. Don't interrupt me. You needn't think we're going over all the old, old arguments again." "You have changed your mind rather swiftly," said Antonio, refusing to be suppressed. "Barely four hours ago you seemed to acquiesce in--" "In my fate," she said, with a bitter laugh. "So I did. You worked on my feelings. Don't think me coarse and brutal; but I'll give you one illustration. You spread for me your cloak. Do you think I didn't see how old it was? When I thought of that, and of all the hardships you'd suffered, my heart broke and I cried and cried and cried like a baby. But I've changed my mind. I admire you as much as ever; but I don't admire the way you are going on. A man like you ought to have the best cloak in the world, and all the rest of the best things with it. You are a poet, you are a delicate gentleman. I see it every time you pour out a drop of wine or touch a flower. You would rejoice in exquisite things more than any woman." "Shall I offend you, Isabel?" he asked, coloring up, "if I remind you that this talk is to be short? We are not getting on." "Yes, we are getting on fast," she retorted. "I say that I hate the way you are living. To save money and to buy back this place for the Benedictines is all very well; but I say that your sacrifices are overdone, and that God must be grieved by your excesses. He has shown that you are not meant to be a monk. He has driven your brethren away, and instead of them he has sent you ... _me_. No. I'm not conceited. I don't think I'm wonderful. But I'm your destiny, and that's everything. You were not called to monasticism; you were called to _me_. That is, you were called to be a monk only to save you from the wrong woman, only until the appointed day should dawn for you and me to meet. It has dawned. Yes, Antonio, I can quote Scripture, and I don't quote it irreverently either. The day has dawned. And 'To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart.' If you do, it will be a sin; just as I suppose it's a sin for a man to harden his heart against the call to be a monk."