Under Jo’s lowering brows the dark eyes gleamed. "Then, Mam’selle, if the girl remembered and talked surely you can see why it was best to hush her story?" The colour again receded from Sister Angela’s face. She did not look guilty, but she looked anxious. She had circulated a report that the missing girl was on probation in a good home; she had carried on a still hunt untiringly; and now if Mam’selle Jo Morey could be prevailed upon to adopt the girl, how perfectly everything would work out. And there was to be a meeting of the managers in a week! "Sister, I mean to take this girl if it can be done legally and quietly, but I will not unless I hear all I can from you, all there is to know." "Very well, Mam’selle, we only have the girl’s good at heart, I assure you. Our Sister Mary was the one who brought the girl to us four years ago. I will send her to you. As to the legal steps, they are practical and easy, and when one of our fold goes to another, that is the end! We have educated this girl carefully; she is well trained. We had always her interest at heart. And now I will send Sister Mary." Left alone again, Jo clasped her hands close and stiffened as for an ordeal. The door opened and closed. A very pale little Sister took a chair near Mam’selle and, holding to her crucifix as to an anchor, she said gently: "I am to tell you of the little girl, Marie. ’Tis not much of a story. We know very little, but the little were best forgot; it is not a pretty story. "Four years ago word came from a tavern back in the hills that a man and child were very ill there and I went over to nurse them. The girl had fallen and hurt her head. She was quite out of her mind and I decided to bring her here; the doctor said she could be moved. The man, he was the father of the child, was dying. I sent for a priest and waited until the priest came. "The man was a bit delirious and talked wildly, but at every question he hushed suddenly as if he were mortally afraid of something. "He said he wanted no priest, insisted that he was able to start on. He was taking the child to someone who, he kept repeating, would believe him and understand. "When I asked him what there was to believe and to whom he was taking the child, he looked at me strangely and laughed! He died before the priest came. I brought the girl away and somehow the report got around that she, too, had died, and we thought it best to let the matter rest there. "A year later two men came to hear what we had to tell about the man who had died; he was wanted for—murder!" To Morey sprang to her feet. "Not—that!" she panted. Then quickly regaining her self-control, "I see now why you felt you must keep the story secret," she continued, and sank back limply in her chair. "Exactly," nodded Sister Mary, then glanced about the room and lowered her voice.