"I'm afraid you are exciting my patient," she said pleasantly. Alexis met her gentle gaze with a guilty expression. "I'm afraid I am, but I didn't mean to," he stammered contritely. "Perhaps I'd better go?" The sister nodded. "It would be best, but I'll give you a minute or two to say goodbye in," she added with a lenient smile. The young couple interested her, and her old maid's heart was gripped by their very evident problem. With punctilious courtesy, she turned and walked back to the window. Alexis knelt quickly beside the bed and laid his face against Claire's head. His lips upon the thick, black hair, he whispered in the averted ear. "Can you ever forgive me, Claire? I must have been born an utter cad. I just can't seem to help it!" She turned her face towards him indignantly and put her hand upon his lips. "Don't say such a thing," she murmured beneath her breath, but with startling intensity. "You are Alexis, and that is all I ask. And now go, my dear, I am tired." She pushed him away feebly. He rose to his feet and kissed remorsefully the little hand she extended. "I am not fit to live!" he exclaimed, unconsciously expounding man's most stereotyped phrase, and filling her woman's soul thereby with the usual illogical pity. When he had left and the nun had gone to her supper, she broke down completely. Poor Alexis, poor Claire, she thought bitterly, into what a miserable tangle they had blundered. And what a wretched fool she herself had been. Such a beautiful bond had existed between them, and in her greedy effort to draw it still closer, she had snapped it asunder. For her aunt, the real instigator of it all, she had scarcely a thought of blame. Even if she had known the entire truth, she probably would not have reproached her. Her instinct told her that it was her own blissful acquiescence by which she had been betrayed. She accepted her responsibility very simply and without thought of contradiction.