Cicely’s bright head bowed on the window sill; her breath came short; her cheeks grew wet with tears such as she had never before shed, as the realization came to her that this was her superabounding reward. Because she had renounced Rodney for God’s sake, He was making her as the little crook which He laid around the neck of Rodney’s errant wife, compelling her to turn and return. Cis rose up at last when Nan, unable to leave her to herself longer, came softly knocking at her door, and, with a loving kiss, laid the baby in Cicely’s arms, offering her thus the best clue that she knew to the mysteries of life, the sweetest panacea for its ills. And as she did so, Nan, with a sudden sinking of heart, was sure that Cis would marry Rodney; that his wife would die and she would marry him, because she had known what it was to worship at the shrine of this baby. Cis had little to say to Nan of the tremendous experience of that day; what was there to say? It was far too great for comment, and of the possible import of it, its strange connection with her recent past, Cis had no desire to talk to Nan. She did go with it to Jeanette Lucas, whose understanding was perfect, but to her Cis found herself unequal to say much. She wrote to Father Morley, and received from him a long letter that formulated and expressed for Cis all that she had been trying to correlate in herself. However, it was in her daily visits to the House of the Good Shepherd that Cis received the best fruit of these experiences. Every day Cis made time to go to see Myrtle Moore, and every day she sat for a while with the white robed nun whom they called Sister Bonaventure, properly so called her, Cis thought, for her coming was always good for her. She was wise with a wisdom that must have been the direct reception of that gift from the Holy Ghost, for she “had entered religion,” she told Cis, at twenty-two. She had spent but one year at home after her graduation from a convent school, so that she had encountered nothing of the world’s wickedness and weakness, yet she seemed to have plumbed the depths of the science of souls; her talk was illuminative and tonic to Cis. “Will she die, Sister?” Cis asked, speaking of their patient. “Surely; we all shall,” smiled the nun. “But yes; I think Myrtle will not live long. You see, she has used up all her capital of strength, burned it like a fuel that yields cold, not heat. I think she will not last long.” “And will she die well--sorry, you know?” Cis hesitated; she found it hard to talk of Rodney’s wife’s state, even to Sister Bonaventure.