Читать книгу Sister Teresa онлайн

33 страница из 85

Even so he felt he would have acted just as he had acted, and he went to his room thinking that the rest of his life would be recollection. "She is still in the train, going away from me, intent on her project, absorbed in her desire of a new life ... this haunting which has come upon her."

ssss1

And so it was. Evelyn lay back in the corner of the railway carriage thinking about the poor people, and about the nuns, about herself, about the new life which she was entering upon, and which was dearer to her than anything else. She grew a little frightened at the hardness of her heart. "It certainly does harden one's heart," she said; "my heart is as hard as a diamond. But is my heart as hard as a diamond?" The thought awoke a little alarm, and she sat looking into the receding landscape. "Even so I cannot help it." And she wondered how it was that only one thing in the world seemed to matter—to extricate the nuns from their difficulties, that was all. Her poor people, of course she liked them; her voice, she liked it too, without, however, being able to feel certain that it interested her as much as it used to, or that she was not prepared to sacrifice it if her purpose demanded the sacrifice. But there was no question of such sacrifice: it was given to her as the means whereby she might effect her purpose. If the Glasgow concert were as successful as the Edinburgh, she would be able to bring back some hundreds of pounds to the nuns, perhaps a thousand. And what a pleasure that would be to her!