“‘Oh, I have not told you all,’ replied she, hesitatingly. ‘I know that I have done wrong, but my punishment is great as my offence:’ and she looked down the dark passage towards the door with a shudder of affright. ‘But thus it was. I had been ill in bed for more than a week, and had grown so weary of my little cell—and last night I could not sleep for thinking of all the brightness of the world I never was to see. I prayed to the Holy Virgin to take away these wicked thoughts from my mind, but she did not think fit to give me grace, for towards morning my desire to go abroad became even more intense; and so, when sister Marthe, who watches me, left me, still thinking that I was asleep, to go to matins, I rose from my bed and came down, to walk for a few moments beneath the cloisters of the outer court, in the hope that the air of the place, confined as it was, might help to cool the fever of the past night. I have long been forbidden to go into the garden; they say it is too cold and damp, and that my cough will be worse than ever if I stay beneath the trees. Well, I turned round and round the court, listening to the chimes of Saint Sulpice, and thinking of what our Lady Abbess tells me I should never think of—the delight of lying in some cool green meadow, on the grass, beneath the overhanging branches of some old tree—when the tempter, who, as Sister Marthe has often told me, already half possesses my lost soul (alas! she _must_ speak truth), led me this way—into the cloister which leads to yonder door. It was ajar—Mother Jeanne, the _femme de peine_, had just been cleaning it with broom and pail, and had opened it to sweep the rubbish into this dark passage. How she could have left it open thus I cannot tell—yes, Sister Marthe is right—it _must_ have been the tempter’s work! My heart beat violently at sight of that open door. I thought to have fled, but I yielded to temptation, and peeped through the long dark passage into the street beyond. Scarcely had I thus gazed for an instant, when I was seized with a desire so burning, so intense, to see the _Place_, which I had been told was at the end of this little street, that, without a moment’s reflection, I rushed down the passage and was free. I meant to have merely cast one look upon the _Place_, and have returned immediately. I thought it might be possible that in this illness I might die, and it was very hard that I should leave a world, which they tell me God has made so full of beauty, without having beheld aught besides this dull old pile; so I stepped out into the street with more delight than I ought to have done, considering that I was doing what was wrong. I buried my head in my capuchon, and turned boldly down the street to the left; but I had not gone far before I perceived that I must have taken the wrong direction, for as I drew near to the end, I saw not the fine open square which I had been promised, but another street more dirty and more dull than the