"No! I thought I was above all foolish weakness, but I find I am not so. This is the first time that we have had to take away life for the Cause, but do not imagine that I shall ever again behave in this manner. I confide this to you two, for you will understand me--you will not consider I have forfeited my right to be the Chief of the Sisterhood, because on one exceptional occasion I cannot be altogether as I would be. Think of it!--This girl has lived with me so long. I believed I had in her one who would have been of the very highest service to the Cause--I am disappointed--I feel this more than you suppose. Now, I wish to have nothing personally to do with the--the removal of this girl," she could not bring herself to utter Mary's name now. "Arrange it among yourselves. Tell me when it is all over. I do not feel strong enough to go into this matter--besides, it is not necessary I should. But after this," and she raised her voice to tones of haughty determination, "no one will ever see me weak again. Unpitying stern justice should be the only sentiment of one who aspires to lead such a Cause as ours." But Susan, who was full of malicious ecstacy this evening, did not feel inclined to spare her Chief all further pain. She was filled with a delicious lust for torturing anything that came across her. It was her way when she felt happier than usual, so she said, "But, Sister Catherine, we must at any rate have your advice. This is a very delicate task we have to perform. How are we to get at Mary while she is in the country? It will not be easy. She knows our rules, our methods of doing things. A very slight mistake and we are lost. Who can we send down to do this thing? I would go myself, but she knows me, dislikes me, and would at once divine my object. Now I have a plan by which she can be removed with the very least amount of danger." Catherine felt sick with disgust and horror, but she could not refuse to listen--it was her duty--_her duty!_ she had to keep that idea constantly before her during the interview, so that she might not fail in this terrible ordeal. "What is it?" she asked in a feeble voice--she could not bear this torture much longer. Susan spoke deliberately and without making any effort to gloss over the horror of her proposal. "There is only one of us that Mary loves and trusts--that is yourself, Sister Catherine; is it not so?" "It is." "Well," continued the torturer, "as you alone of us would have any chance of seeing her at Farnham--" "Impossible," interrupted Catherine with a smothered shriek, as she rose from her chair, her hands clenched, quite forgetting herself beneath the scourges of that devil's tongue.