"This is truly dreadful," she declared. "Of course I had no idea that Mother Anastasia would consider your plan as anything more than the wild outreachings of a baffled lover, but I did not imagine that she would take it in this way. This is very bad." "It is," I answered. "Everything is knocked from under me." "Oh, bless you," said the lady, "I wasn't thinking of you, but of Mother Anastasia. It was the happiest news I can remember when I heard that she was soon to drop that name and all that belonged to it, and to begin a life in which she would be a woman among her peers, no matter with what sex they happen to be classed. But if she stops short and remains in that miserable House of Martha, the result is bound to be disastrous. If she believes it is necessary to spend her life in protecting Sylvia from your assaults, she is the woman to spend her life in that way." "What her friends should do," said I, "is to convince her that it is not necessary." Miss Laniston gazed upon me fixedly. "You think it would be a great pity for a beautiful woman--a remarkably fine woman like Mother Anastasia--to hide herself away in that make-believe convent?" "Indeed I do," I answered, with animation. "And since one fine woman is shut up for life in that prison, you think it a shame that another one should remain within its walls?" I assented warmly. "Now, then," remarked Miss Laniston, rising, "it is absolutely necessary for me to go to the Frenchwoman, who, I know, is fuming for me, and whose time is very precious. I shall be with you again in about twenty minutes, and during that time I wish you would make up your mind with whom you are in love,--Mother Anastasia or Sylvia Raynor. When that point is settled, we will see what can be done." It was a man of a bewildered mind who was left alone in that drawing-room. I did not understand what had been said to me, but now that ideas of this kind had been put into words, there seemed to be a certain familiarity about them. How dared she speak to me in that way? What ground had she for such words? And yet--Sylvia was shut up for life in the House of Martha. I could not gainsay that. I could not put my thoughts into form, and with my mind in chaos I strode up and down the room until Miss Laniston returned. "What an uneasy person you are!" she said. "Have you settled that little point?" "Settled it! There is nothing to settle." She laughed. "I am not so sure about that. I thought I saw a change in the wind when you were here last, and it is natural enough that it should change. What is the good of its blowing steadfastly from the north, when the north is nothing but ice?" "You have no right to talk in that way!" I exclaimed angrily. "I utterly repudiate your supposition."