She had never heard of Erinna; she did not know that a maiden poetess had made almost those very words immortal in one lovely broken line that has come down to us from five and twenty centuries ago. In the Everlasting Return they fell again from a maiden's lips, but they roused no response; Madame Bernard took them for a bit of girlish sentiment, and scarcely heeded them, while she wondered at Angela's strangely calm manner.
They walked back slowly along the straight way between the tombs.
'I loved him living and I love him dead,' said the young novice slowly. 'He cannot come back to me, but some day I may go to him.'
'Yes,' answered Madame Bernard without conviction.
The next world had always seemed very vague to her; and besides, poor Giovanni had been a soldier, and she knew something of military men, and wondered where they went when they died.
'You are a very good woman,' Angela continued, following her own train of thought; 'do you think it is wrong for a nun to love a dead man?'
'Dear me!' exclaimed the little Frenchwoman in some surprise. 'How can one love a man who is dead? It is impossible; consequently it is not wrong!'
Angela looked at her quickly and then walked on.
'There is no such thing as death,' she said.
It was Filmore Durand's odd speech that had come back to her often during two years; when she repeated it to herself she saw his portrait of Giovanni, which still hung in Madame Bernard's sitting-room, and presently it was not a picture seen in memory, but Giovanni himself.
Madame Bernard shrugged her shoulders and smiled vaguely.
'Death is a fact,' she said prosaically. 'It is the reason why we cannot live for ever!'
The reason was not convincing to Angela, but as she saw no chance of being understood, she went back to the starting-point.
'Then you do not think it can possibly be wrong for a nun to love some one who is dead?' she asked, her tone turning the statement into a question.
'Of course not!' cried the governess almost impatiently. 'You might as well think yourself in love with his tombstone and then fancy it a sin!'
So one of Angela's three friends had answered her question very definitely. The answer was not worthless, because Madame Bernard was a very honest, matter-of-fact woman; on the contrary, it represented a practical opinion, and that is always worth having, though the view it defines may be limited. Angela did not try to explain further what she had meant, and Madame Bernard always avoided subjects she could not understand. The two chatted pleasantly about other things as they returned to the convent, and the little Frenchwoman trotted contentedly back to her lodgings, feeling that the person she loved best in the world was certain to turn out a very good and happy nun.