"Why, madame," said she, "should not all who suffer seek the Lord's help; and is not your establishment a consecrated station upon the way to heaven?" "There is but one path that leads to God, my sister," replied the nun, carried away by her despair. "What do you regret? For what do you weep? What do you desire? Society has turned a cold shoulder upon you, your friends are false to you, you lack money, or some transitory sorrow has made you a believer in everlasting misery; am I not right? You are suffering at this moment, and you fancy that you will suffer always thus, even as, when one sees an open wound, one fancies that it will never close. But you are mistaken; every wound that is not mortal will heal; so suffer on, and let your sorrow take its course; you will be cured, and then, if you are bound to us, suffering of another sort will begin; and that suffering will be in very truth unending, implacable, and past endurance. You will look out, through a barrier of brass, upon the world, to which you cannot return; then you will curse the day when the door of this holy hostelry, which you take for a station on the road to heaven, closed upon you. This that I say to you is not in strict accordance with our rules perhaps,--I have not been abbess long enough to know them thoroughly,--but 't is in strict accord with the feelings of my heart, and it is what I see every hour, not, in my own case, thank God! but all about me." "Oh! no, no!" cried the stranger, "the world is at an end for me; I have lost everything that made the world attractive to me. No, madame, have no fear; I shall never regret it, never,--I am sure I shall never regret it!" "Then the sorrow that afflicts you has a deeper source? Instead of an illusion have you lost a reality? Have you been separated forever from a husband, or child--or from a friend? Ah! then I pity you with all my heart, madame, for your heart is pierced from side to side and your wound is incurable. In that case, come to us, madame; the Lord will comfort you; he will replace the friends or kindred you may have lost with us, who form one large family, a flock of which he is the shepherd; and," added the abbess in a lower tone, "if he does not comfort you, which is quite possible, there will remain to you the last poor consolation of weeping with me, who came hither like yourself, in quest of comfort, but have not yet found it here." "Alas!" cried the stranger, "was it such words as these that I hoped to hear? Is it thus that the unhappy are consoled?" "Madame," said the superior, putting out her hand as if to ward off the rebuke, "do not speak of unhappiness before me; I know not who you may be, I know not what has happened to you, but you know nothing of unhappiness."