"Oh!" cried the stranger, in an agonized tone which made the superior shudder, "you do not know me, madame, for if you did know me, you would not speak so to me; besides, you cannot fairly judge my suffering, for to do that you must have suffered what I suffer; meanwhile, receive me, make me welcome, open the gates of God's house to me; and by my tears and cries and agony you will know if I am truly unhappy." "Yes," said the superior, "I realize from your accent and from your words that you have lost the man you love, have you not?" The stranger sobbed, and wrung her hands. "Oh! yes, yes!" said she. "Very well; since it is your desire, be one of our community; but first let me tell you what awaits you here, if your sufferings are equal to mine: two everlasting, pitiless walls, which, instead of turning our thoughts toward heaven, whither they should rise, constantly confine them to the earth, from which you will be separated; for while the blood flows, and the pulses beat, and the heart loves, none of the faculties are extinct; isolated as we are, and hidden from sight as we believe ourselves to be, the dead call to us from the depths of the tomb: 'Why do you leave the place where your dead are buried?'" "Because all that I have loved in the world is here," replied the stranger, in a choking voice, throwing herself at the feet of the superior, who gazed at her in profound astonishment. "Now you have my secret, my sister; now you can understand my grief, my mother. I implore you on my knees--you see my tears--to accept the sacrifice I make to God, or rather to grant the favor I ask at your hands. He is buried in the church of Peyssac; let me weep upon his tomb, which is here." "What tomb? Of whom are you speaking? What do you mean?" cried the superior, drawing back from the kneeling woman, at whom she gazed with something very like terror. "When I was happy," continued the penitent, in a voice so low that it was drowned by the sighing of the wind among the branches, "when I was happy--and I have been very happy--I was called Nanon de Lartigues. Do you recognize me now, and do you know what it is that I implore?" The superior sprang to her feet as if released by a spring, and stood for a moment, motionless and pale, with uplifted eyes and clasped hands. "Oh, madame!" she said at last in a voice which she struggled to render calm, but which trembled with emotion, "oh, madame, is it true that you, who come here to weep beside a tomb, have no knowledge who I am? You do not know that I have purchased with my freedom, with my happiness in this world, and with all the tears of my heart the melancholy pleasure of which you now claim an equal portion. You are Nanon de Lartigues; I, when I had a name, was the Vicomtesse de Cambes." Nanon, with a sharp cry, walked up to the superior, and, raising the hood which shaded the nun's dull eyes, recognized her rival.