believed that they were the mourning mothers and sisters of other women who had had the same pitiless courage as Madame de Cintre.  But they were better off than he, for they at least shared the faith to which the others had sacrificed themselves.  Three or four persons came in; two of them were elderly gentlemen.  Every one was very quiet.  Newman fastened his eyes upon the screen behind the altar.  That was the convent, the real convent, the place where she was.  But he could see nothing; no light came through the crevices.  He got up and approached the partition very gently, trying to look through.  But behind it there was darkness, with nothing stirring.  He went back to his place, and after that a priest and two altar boys came in and began to say mass.  Newman watched their genuflections and gyrations with a grim, still enmity; they seemed aids and abettors of Madame de Cintre’s desertion; they were mouthing and droning out their triumph.  The priest’s long, dismal intonings acted upon his nerves and deepened his wrath; there was something defiant in his unintelligible drawl; it seemed meant for Newman himself.  Suddenly there arose from the depths of the chapel, from behind the inexorable grating, a sound which drew his attention from the altar—­the sound of a strange, lugubrious chant, uttered by women’s voices.  It began softly, but it presently grew louder, and as it increased it became more of a wail and a dirge.  It was the chant of the Carmelite nuns, their only human utterance.  It was their dirge over their buried affections and over the vanity of earthly desires.  At first Newman was bewildered—­almost stunned—­by the strangeness of the sound; then, as he comprehended its meaning, he listened intently and his heart began to throb.  He listened for Madame de Cintre’s voice, and in the very heart of the tuneless harmony he imagined he made it out. (We are obliged to believe that he was wrong, inasmuch as she had obviously not yet had time to become a member of the invisible sisterhood.) The chant kept on, mechanical and monotonous, with dismal repetitions and despairing cadences.  It was hideous, it was horrible; as it continued, Newman felt that he needed all his self-control.  He was growing more agitated; he felt tears in his eyes.  At last, as in its full force the thought came over him that this confused, impersonal wail was all that either he or the world she had deserted should ever hear of the voice he had found so sweet, he felt that he could bear it no longer.  He rose abruptly and made his way out.  On the threshold he paused, listened again to the dreary strain, and then hastily descended into the court.  As he did so he saw the good sister with the high-colored cheeks and the fanlike frill to her coiffure, who had admitted him, was in conference at the gate with two persons who had just come in.  A second glance informed him that these persons were Madame de Bellegarde and her son, and that they were about to avail themselves