There were few articles of comfort, and none of luxury, in the room--a strip of gray carpet, laid down beside the bed, an easy-chair with soft, padded back, arms, and seat, covered with white dimity, drawn up to the window nearest the stove, and a footstool of gray tapestry on the floor before it. These comforts were allowed to none but invalids. The abbess came in to see her every day. One morning Salome said to her visitor: "Mother, I have left this affair with the Duke of Hereward incomplete. I must complete it, that I may have peace." "I do not understand you, my child," said the abbess, in some uneasiness. "I have left him as in duty bound. I must write to him to let him know _why_ I left him; but I must not let him know the place of my retreat. I think I heard you say that our father-director was going to Rome this week?" "Yes, my child." "Then I will write to the Duke of Hereward for the last time, and bid him an eternal farewell. I will not date my letter from any place; but I will give it to the father-director that he may post it from Rome. You shall read my letter before I close it, dear mother. And now, on these terms, will you let me have writing materials?" "Certainly, my child. I will send them to you; or rather I will bring them," answered the meek lady-superior, as she arose and left the room. In a very few minutes she returned with the required articles. Salome wrote her letter, and then submitted it to the perusal of the abbess, who accorded it her full approval. "Now, dear mother, if the father-director will take that with him and post it from Rome, all will be over between the Duke of Hereward and myself! We shall be dead to each other," said Salome, as the abbess took the letter and left the room. Then the invalid sank back, exhausted, in her easy-chair. In this easy-chair by the window, with her feet upon the footstool, Salome sat day after day of her convalescence; sometimes for hours together, with her hands clasped upon her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the floor, in a sort of stupor; sometimes with her sad gaze turned upon the sear garden, as she murmured to herself: "Withered like my life!" Some one among the nuns was always with her; but she took no notice of her companion, seeming quite unconscious of the sister's presence. The abbess had taken care to have books of devotion laid upon her little table, but Salome never opened one of them. Apathy, lethargy, like a moral death, had fallen upon her. The story of her sorrows, known only to the abbess, to whom she had confided it on the eve of her illness, was never alluded to. Salome seemed to have buried it in silence. The abbess feared to raise it from the dead. Not one in the convent suspected the real circumstances of the case.