“Nothing at all. You have excellent teeth, Sister. There’ll be no more trouble, now those fillings are in.” The smile he gave her! So that one hardly heard what he was saying.... “If the Reverend Mother wants anyone else seen to, I shall be very pleased to do what I can. Good-bye, Sister. I should like to have persuaded you that there’s plenty of good work to be done outside, too. Take a capable woman like yourself, now. It seems a shame you should be shutting yourself up inside four walls. Why, you--you might have been my secretary, if I could only afford to have one!” That was a grand laugh of his, it made one want to laugh too, only that one might start crying somehow. It seemed there’d be nothing left to look forward to in the whole world after the shake of the hand meaning good-bye. There was still that.... It was the queer way to feel entirely, and her forty years old. Touching the hand of him for the last time, and it strong and yet gentle at one and the same time, quite different to the hand of any woman.... It was over now, and one hurried away, scared that old Seraphina’d see something strange in the face of one. “Will any more of the sisters be going to him, Mother Seraphina?” “No.” “Nor any of the dear children?” “No.” * * * * * Mother of Mercy, there was no sleeping in this heat! But it wasn’t the heat. It was the way one was fretting and crying after what couldn’t be. Though what for couldn’t it be, when he’d said himself that it was a sin and a shame for the like of her to be shut up inside four walls, and himself wanting a secretary and not able to pay one? There’d be some glad enough to work for him without any pay. Day after day it went on, and night after night, till the pain in one’s head was past bearing, and still there was no getting to sleep. The things one thought of! There was the door, giving right on to the street, and then only a bit of a walk, and oneself knowing every step of the way, and then the sight of him, and the feel of those hands of his--it was that would put everything right, and take the spell off of one. On the hottest night of all, Sister Clara made up her mind. She’d break her holy vows, that were already broken in the heart of her, and go back into the world. In the morning she dressed and went downstairs. She’d not be taking anything with her. After Mass the nuns’d be going to the refectory, and they’d not be missing her for awhile, and they keeping the custody of the eyes the way the Holy Rule enjoined. Oh, it was the fine nun she was, to talk about the Holy Rule. The door was unlocked. Once outside on the pavement, there was nothing to do but pull it to again. The slam of it! There’d be no getting in again now, without a great ringing of the bell, and the portress coming to answer it, and the giving of scandal to the whole of them. If it hadn’t been for that slam of the door....