"I wish to speak to Madame the Superior," replied Fandor. The window was closed again and a lengthy silence followed. Then, slowly, the heavy entrance gate swung half open. Fandor entered the convent. Under the arched doorway, a nun received him with a slight salutation, and turned her back. "Kindly follow me," she murmured. Fandor followed along a narrow passage, on one side of which were cells, whilst on the other, it opened by means of large bays, on a vast rectangular cloister quite deserted. A door-window in the passage was ajar: the nun stopped here and said: "Kindly wait in this parlour, and be good enough to let me have your card. I will inform our Mother Superior that you wish to see her." The room in which our journalist found himself was severely furnished: its walls were white, on them hung a great ivory crucifix, and here and there, a simple religious picture framed in ebony. A few chairs were ranged in a circle about an oval table: on the floor, polished till it shone like a mirror, were a few small mats, which gave a touch of common-place comfort to the icy regularity of this parlour, set apart for official visits. What emotions, what dramas, what joys, have had this parlour for a setting! It is there that the life of the cloister touches mundane existence; it is there the nuns receive their future companions in the religious life and their weeping families; it is there the parents of those in the convent infirmary come to hear from the doctor's lips the decrees of life or death; for the convent is not only a retreat, it is an asylum for the sick, the ailing, recommended to their patients by the most eminent doctors, the most prominent surgeons. Accustomed though he was to every kind of human misery, Fandor shuddered at the thought of all these walls had seen and heard. His reflections were broken by the arrival of a little old lady, whose eyes shone strangely luminous in her pale and wrinkled face--a face showing the highest distinction. Fandor made a deep bow: it might have expressed the reverence of the world to religion. "Madame la Superieure," murmured he, "I have come to pay my respects to you and to ask for news of your boarder." The Mother Superior, in a gay tone, which contrasted with her cold and reserved appearance, replied at once: "Ah, you preferred to come yourself! You had not the patience to wait at the telephone? I quite understand. Would you believe it, while the sister, who has charge of this young girl, was being sent for, the communication was cut off. That is why we could not give you any information." Fandor stared. "But I do not understand, madame?" The Mother Superior replied: "Was it not you then who telephoned this morning to ask for news of Mademoiselle Dollon?" "I certainly did not do so!" "In that case, I do not understand what it means, either! But it does not matter much: you shall see your protegee now." The Mother Superior rang: a sister appeared.