“Dear Rodney:” the note ran. “I cannot marry you because you cannot marry me. It cannot be a marriage so I must go away, never come to the dear apartment again. I will not disobey God. If He helps me, I will die first, and, Rod, oh, Rod, this is like dying! You will be angry, and say that I do not love you, but if you try to remember me as I was, you will know that I love you. Perhaps if I loved you less I might not care so much to do right. I am sending you the ring. It was not a holly berry, but the heart’s blood of your Christmas Cis that the ruby meant. Dear Rod, I bless you for your truthful dealing with me, that you would not trick me into the marriage which would never be a true one in the eyes of either of us, for we were both Catholics. I will try to be a better one so that God will hear me beg Him to bless you and bring you back. Will you please not try to see me, dear? Nothing that you could say would make me believe that it was right to marry you when you have a living wife, but the struggle to keep right is too hard on me, and I could not see you go away forever and live through it. I’ve borne all I can. So don’t see me, my dearest, but don’t forget me. Good-bye--it means God be with you, you know. Cis.” “It is quite right, dear girl,” said Miss Braithwaite gently, touching the piteous little letter softly, as if it were a dead child. Cis drew off her ring and kissed it many times. Then she dropped it into Miss Braithwaite’s lap. “Will you wrap it up in the letter and send it for me?” Cis said. “You are good to me, Miss Braithwaite. Will you teach me how to be this new Cis? The world used to be full of sounds; it seems to be quite still and empty. I suppose when you’re dead it’s like that. I don’t know which way to walk.” CHAPTER XVI WITNESSING Miss Braithwaite had to waken Cis in the morning to get her up in time to drive with her to St. Francis Xavier’s for Mass. It was a Mass of renunciation and espousal, a communion that pledged Cicely to turn from her forbidden love for Rodney to allegiance to God, yet she felt this but dimly. She went through the Mass dutifully, but humbly; she realized that she was vowing herself and that her vow was then accepted. Her will acquiesced, but at least one of the other powers of her soul was atrophied. Below her surfaces pain waited her awakening; she willed her martyrdom unfalteringly, but there was for her none of the martyrs’ triumphant joy. Yet she received the Lord Who had once raised a maiden from the dead, and, groping for Him, found Him, how truly she did not then know. “I must go to the office,” Cis said suddenly to Miss Braithwaite at breakfast. “I wonder why I’ve only just thought of it? How could I forget! It is half past nine already. Miss Braithwaite, what shall I do? Ought I telephone Mr. Lucas first, ask him if he still wants me to come? You had me excused for only one day.”