Just as she had succeeded in attaining some degree of quietness, came Jack, determined to arrive at an explanation, full of the earnestness of a thorough religious conviction, and roused in her heart again all the old rebellious misgivings. In vain, did she strive to forget what he had said. It rung in her ears by night and day. The ghost, which had never been quite laid, came back to haunt her more constantly than ever, with the old whisper, "It is true. It is all true; and with all your efforts you have not made one step toward true holiness; because you have been walking in the wrong direction. You are a miserable sinner, not one whit better, not so good as these people you have been looking down upon all your life." If Anne had yielded to these convictions, if she had listened to the voice speaking within her, she might indeed have been unhappy for a time; but her sorrow would not have been bitter, and she would soon have found peace. But she would not yield—not one inch. To do her justice, it was no fear of consequences which kept her back. She would have gone to the stake as cheerfully as any martyr that ever died. But her pride rose in arms, that pride which was her strongest characteristic, and which waxed stronger and stronger, because she never acknowledged its existence to herself. Was she to confess that all her life had hitherto been wrong and mistaken? Was she, the pattern to the pupils, and even to the elder sisters, the prospective prioress, the future abbess, perhaps, to own that she had no title to all these honors, that she was no saint, but a miserable sinner, that instead of doing anything to purchase the salvation of others, she could only sue as a beggar for her own?