To this query I naturally made no reply. It was not easy to answer, and besides, at the first softening of her mood, my wrath had melted away, carrying my courage with it. I was perilously near tears. Madame Rayburn dropped my hand, and gave me a little nod. It meant that I was free, and I scudded like a hare through the corridor, through the First Cours classroom, and down into the refectory. There the familiar aspect of breakfast, the familiar murmur of "Pain, s'il vous plait," restored my equanimity. I met the curious glances cast at me with that studied unconcern, that blankness of expression which we had learned from Elizabeth, and which was to us what the turtle shell is to the turtle,--a refuge from inquisitors. I had no mind that any one should know the exact nature of my experience. That night I made good my word, and erased the twenty-one after a thorough-going fashion I hardly like to recall. But when the operation was over, and I curled up in my bed, I said to myself that although I should never again wear this beloved number upon hand or arm, it would be engraved forever on my heart. As long as I lived, I should feel for Julia Reynolds the same passionate and unalterable devotion. Perhaps, some time in the future, I should have the happiness of dying for her. I was arranging the details of this charming possibility, and balancing in my mind the respective delights of being bitten--while defending her--by a mad dog, or being drowned in mid-ocean, having given her my place in the life-boat, and was waving her a last farewell from the decks of the sinking ship, when I finally fell asleep. The next morning was Sunday, the never-to-be-forgotten Sunday, when Marianus for the first time served Mass. And as I watched him, breathless with delight, Julia's image grew pale, as pale as that of Isabel Summers, and faded quietly away. I looked at Elizabeth and Tony. They, too, were parting with illusions. Their sore little arms might now be permitted to heal, for their faithless hearts no longer bore a scar. The reign of our lost loves was over. The sovereignty of Marianus had begun. The Riverside Press _Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been standardized. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Our Convent Days, by Agnes Repplier