Hour after hour she lay there, dry-eyed, staring into
the darkness. And with the dawn her decision
was taken.
AN UNANSWERED LETTER
“You shan’t do it!”
When first Magda had bruited her idea of rejoining
the sisterhood—the decision which had crystallised
out of the long black hours of the night of her return
to Friars’ Holm—Gillian had merely
laughed the notion aside, attaching little importance
to it. But now, a week later, when Magda reverted
to the subject with a certain purposeful definiteness,
she grew suddenly frightened.
“Do you want to throw away every possibility
of happiness?” she demanded indignantly.
“Just because Michael isn’t here, waiting
for you on the doorstep, so to speak, you decide to
rush off and make it impossible for him ever to see
you again!”
Magda kept her head bent, refusing to meet the other’s
eyes.
“I don’t want him to see me now,”
she said shrinkingly. “I’m not—not
the Magda he knew any longer.”
“That’s an absurd exaggeration. You’re
not looking very well, that’s all,” retorted
Gillian with her usual practical common sense.
“You can’t suppose that would make any
difference to Michael! It didn’t make any
to me. I’m only too glad to have you back
at any price!”
Magda’s faint responsive smile was touched with
that bitter knowledge which is the heritage of the
woman who has been much loved for her beauty.
“You’re a woman, Gillyflower,” she
said. “And Michael is not only a man—but
an artist. Men don’t want you when the bloom
has been brushed off. And you know how Michael
worships beauty! He’s bound to—being
an artist.”
“I think you’re morbidly self-conscious,”
declared Gillian firmly. “I suppose it’s
the result of being out of the world for so long.
You’ve lost all sense of proportion. You’re
quite lovely enough, now, to satisfy most people.
You only look rather tired and worn out.”
But Magda’s face remained clouded.
“But even that isn’t—all,”
she answered. “It’s—oh,
it’s a heap of things! Somehow I thought
when I came back I should see the road clear.
But it isn’t. It’s all shadowed—just
as it was before. I thought I should have so
much to give Michael now. And I haven’t
anything. I don’t think I ever quite realised
before that, however much you try to atone, you can
never undo the harm you’ve done.
But I’ve had time to think things out while
I was with the Sisters.”
“And if you go back to them you’ll have
time to do nothing but think for the rest of your
life!” flashed back Gillian.
“Oh, no!” Magda spoke quickly. “I
shouldn’t return under a vow of penitence.
There are working sisters attached to the community
who go about amongst the sick and poor in the slums.
I should join as a working sister if I went back.”
Gillian stared at her in amazement. Magda devoting
her life to good works seemed altogether out of the
picture! She began to feel that the whole affair
was getting too complicated for her to handle, and
as usual, when in a difficulty, she put the matter
up to Lady Arabella.
