By-and-by the Sister came and sat on the same bench.
Bella was hardly surprised, but blushed high, for she felt that her own eyes had invited the sympathy of a stranger; and now it seemed to be coming. The timid girl felt uneasy. The Sister saw that, and approached her with tact. “You look unwell,” said she, gently, but with no appearance of extravagant interest or curiosity.
“I am--a little,” said Bella, very reservedly.
“Excuse my remarking it. We are professional nurses, and apt to be a little officious, I fear.”
“I saw you were unwell. But I hope it is not serious. I can generally tell when the sick are in danger.” A peculiar look. “I am glad not to see it in so young and--good a face.”
“You are young, too; very young, and--” she was going to say “beautiful,” but she was too shy--“to be a Sister of Charity. But I am sure you never regret leaving such a world as this is.”
“Never. I have lost the only thing I ever valued in it.”
“I have no right to ask you what that was.”
“You shall know without asking. One I loved proved unworthy.”
The Sister sighed deeply, and then, hiding her face with her hands for a moment, rose abruptly, and left the square, ashamed, apparently, of having been betrayed into such a confession.
Bella, when she was twenty yards off, put out a timid hand, as if to detain her; but she had not the courage to say anything of the kind.
She never told her father a word. She had got somebody now who could sympathize with her better than he could.
Next day the Sister was there, and Bella bowed to her when she met her. This time it was the Sister who went and sat on the bench.
Bella continued her walk for some time, but at last could not resist the temptation. She came and sat down on the bench, and blushed; as much as to say, “I have the courage to come, but not to speak upon a certain subject, which shall be nameless.”
The Sister, as may be imagined, was not so shy. She opened a conversation. “I committed a fault yesterday. I spoke to you of myself, and of the past: it is discouraged by our rules. We are bound to inquire the griefs of others; not to tell our own.”
This was a fair opening, but Bella was too delicate to show her wounds to a fresh acquaintance.
The Sister, having failed at that, tried something very different.