A look of apprehension showed itself in Lady Alice's eyes. "Darling," she said, "you must not let your generous love for me run away with your judgment. I am bound, and you must be bound with me. Listen, when your father found that I had left him he was exceedingly angry. He came to your grandfather's house, he clamored to see me, he attempted to justify himself--oh, I cannot tell you the misery that I went through. At last I consented to see him. He behaved like a madman. He swore that he would have me back--tyrant that he was!" "Mamma--perhaps he cared?" "Cared! He cared for his reputation," said Lady Alice growing rather white about the lips. "For nothing else! Not for me, Lesley! When his violence had expended itself we came to terms. He agreed to let me live where I liked on condition that when you were eight years old you were sent to school, and saw me only during the holidays----" "But why?" "He said that he dreaded my influence on your mind," said Lady Alice. "That you should be brought up at a good school was the first thing. Secondly, that when you were nineteen you should spend a year with him, and then a year with me; and that when you were twenty-one you should choose for yourself with which of the two you preferred to cast in your lot." "Oh, mamma, I cannot go to him now." "You must go, Lesley. I am bound, and you are bound by my promise. Only for a year, my darling. Then you can come back to me for ever. I stipulated that I should see you first, and say to you what I chose." "But cannot I wait a little while?" "Twenty-four hours, Lesley; that is all. You go to your father to-morrow." CHAPTER III. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. The conversation between Lesley and her mother occupied a considerable time, and the sun was sinking westward when at last the two ladies left the Convent. Lesley's adieux had been made before Lady Alice's arrival, and the only persons whom she saw, therefore, after the long interview with her mother, were the Mother Superior, and the Sister who had summoned her to the parlor. While Lady Alice and the Reverend Mother exchanged a few last words, Lesley drew close to Sister Rose's side, and laid her hand on the serge-covered arm. "You were right," she said. "Sister, I see already that I shall need patience and endurance where I am going." "Gentleness and love, also," said the Sister. Then, as if in answer to an indefinable change in Lesley's lips and eyes, she added gently, "We are told that peacemakers are blessed." "I could not make peace----" Lesley began, hastily, and then she stopped short, confused, not knowing how much Sister Rose had heard of her mother's story. But if Sister Rose were ignorant of it, her next words were singularly appropriate. For she said, in a low tone-- "Peace is better than war: forgiveness better than hatred. Dear child, it may be in your hands to reconcile those who have been long divided. Do your best." Lesley had no time to reply.