Old pupils often came back to visit the convent; there was no reason for the return of this one to be more than ordinary, yet the Mother Superior seemed to lack strength to hold out her hand. Andria, after the first glance, could hardly look at her. She had been handsome once in a hard, ascetic way; now her face was but skin drawn over bone, and her sunken eyes like fires long burned out. “You are surprised to see me, reverend mother?” she began gently. She had never liked Mother Felicitas, but that might have been her own fault, and the superior was her one hope now. “I am not well. I see few visitors,” was the slow answer. “As you see, there have been many changes even here since your day.” “Poor Mother Benedicta!” said Andria, and could not go on. She had no right to stand in this quiet convent parlor and play the hypocrite to a woman who might be hard and cold, but was, nevertheless, a saint in her way. “Happy, happy Mother Benedicta,” her successor was thinking passionately. “Free among the dead!” But she only said slowly. “Surprised? No; many girls come back. They think of us sometimes. I suppose you have married, Andria!” with perfunctory interest, wishing the inopportune visitor would go. “Married!” said Andria, who once had thought she was Andria Erle. “No!” The words were almost a cry, and for the first time the Mother Superior looked at her. “Mother Felicitas,” she began, forcing herself to speak out under those unfriendly eyes. “I have no right to be here, no right to force myself on any one like you--but one. I am in great trouble. I have been a wicked woman, but--I am in great trouble.” “And you want to come back!” came the answer slowly. Trouble was the only thing that ever brought them back--to stay! “No,” said Andria, looking round her with a shudder; she would eat her heart out here. “No! Mother Felicitas, I told you I had been wicked--a fool----” “They are the same,” said Mother Felicitas shortly. “But I woke up from my dream. I tried to do faithfully the work that was put into my hands, and--I failed! I have no one to turn to; I am in despair, yet, perhaps, there is time to save my trust yet, if you will help me. No one else can.” She held her hands clasped tight before her, and spoke in a whisper. “Oh! reverend mother, who was Beryl Corselas?” The quiet room heaved like a sea before her hearer’s eyes. The black letters under the picture she dreaded seemed to spring into life, to speak aloud: “Death and the Judgment!” Well, Death was coming, and here, against all canons, was the beginning of the Judgment before it! Yet the superior managed to answer: “Is that your trouble?” she said. “It is a very old one, and I know no more about it than you.” “Oh, Mother Felicitas, think! Try to remember,” with sudden gentleness that was more dangerous than the other woman’s passion. “You knew once. Long, long ago you told Beryl her mad temper came to her honestly--that her mother was the same.”