"Is there any sort but one?" she made answer. "Love is an angel, Annora: it is self-love that is of the Devil. When man helps man to sin, that is not love. How can it be, when God is love, and God and sin are opposites? Tarry until my tale be ended, and then shalt thou be judge thyself how far Roland's love and mine were sin." "Go on," said I. "Well," she said, "for many a week it went no further than looks. Then it came to words." "In the church!" "No, not in the church, my scrupulous sister! We should have felt that as wrong as thou. Through the wall between the gardens, where was a little chink that I dare be bound we were not the first to find. Would that no sinfuller words than ours may ever pass athwart it! We found out that both of us had been thrust into the religious life without our own consent: I, thou savest, by the Queen's wrath (which I knew not then); he, by a cousin that coveted his inheritance. And we talked much, and at last came to agreement that as neither he nor I had any vocation, it would be more wrong in us to continue in this life than to escape and be we'd." "But what priest should ever have wedded a Sister to man training for holy orders?" "None. We were young, Annora: we thought not of such things. As for what should come after we were escaped, we left that to chance. Nay, chide me not for my poor broken dream, for it was a dream alone. The Prioress found us out. That night I was in solitary cell, barred in my prison, with no companions save a discipline that I was bidden to use, and a great stone crucifix that looked down upon me. Ay, I had one Other, but at first I saw Him not. Nay, nor for eight years afterwards. Cold, silent, stony, that crucifix looked down: and I thought He was like that, the living Christ that had died for me, and I turned away from Him. My heart seemed that night as if it froze to ice. It was hard and ice-bound for eight years. During that time there were many changes at Watton. Our Prioress died; and a time of sore sickness removed many of our Sisters. At the end of the eight years, only three Sisters were left who could remember my punishment--it was more than I have told"--ah, poor soul! lightly as she passed it thus, I dare be bound it was--"and these, I imagine, knew not why it was. And at last our confessor died. "I thought I had utterly outlived my youthful dream. Roland had disappeared as entirely as if he had never been. What had become of him I knew not--not even if he were alive. I went about my duties in a dull, wooden way, as an image might do, if it could be made to move so as to sew or paint without a soul. Life was worth nothing to me--only to get it over. My love was dead, or it was my heart: which I knew not. Either came to the same thing. There were duties I disliked, and one of these was confession: but I went through with them, in the cold, dull way of which I spake. It had to be: what did it matter?