Just before eleven o’clock on the following morning two sisters of the Order of Saint Agnes, one of the religious Orders which devote themselves to nursing the poor, were passing through the Tuileries Gardens, sombre figures in their ample plain, black habits, black head-dresses, and deep, white collars, their hands beneath their gowns and gaze downturned, when one of them chanced to note the frail, pathetic little figure of a woman resting upon one of the seats.

It was Jean Ansell. Worn and weary after hours of aimless wandering, she had entered those gardens so beloved of Parisian bonnes and children, and sunk down upon that seat just within the high railings skirting the busy Rue de Rivoli, and had then burst into bitter tears. Her young heart was broken.

Within sound of the hum of the never-ceasing motor traffic, up and down that fine, straight street of colonnades to the great Place de la Concorde, where the fountains were playing, the stream of everyday life of the Gay City had passed her by. None cared—none, indeed, heed a woman’s tears.

Men glanced at her and shrugged their shoulders, and the women who went by only grinned. Her troubles were no concern of theirs. Hatless, with only an old black shawl about her, and with her apron still on, she found herself hungry, homeless, and abandoned. Moreover, she was the wedded wife of a dangerous criminal!

Those who passed her by little dreamed of the strange tragedy that was hers, of the incidents of the past night, of the burglary, the betrayal, the arrest, the flight, and the crowning tragedy. Indeed, she herself sat in ignorance of what had happened to the pair after they had left the house.

She was only wondering whether Ralph had found her note, and whether on reading it, he had experienced any pang of regret.

She was only an encumbrance. He had bluntly told her so.

And as she again burst into tears, for the twentieth time in the half-hour she had rested upon that seat, the two grave-faced sisters noticed her. Then, after discussing her at a distance, they ventured to approach.

She was sitting in blank despair, her elbow upon the arm of the seat, her head bent, her hand upon her brow, her whole frame convulsed by sobs.

“Sister, you are in trouble,” exclaimed the elder of the two thin-faced, ascetic-looking women, addressing her as she placed a hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “Can we be of any assistance?”

Poor Jean looked up startled, dazed for the moment. She was amazed at sight of them. Ah, only those who have been adrift in Paris—the bright, laughter-loving, gay city of world-wide fame—know how hard, cruel, and unsympathetic Paris is, how the dazzling shops, the well-dressed crowds, the brilliantly-lit boulevards, the merry cafÉs, and the clattering restaurants all combine to mock the hungry and weary, the despairing, the penniless.

The girl looked up into the kind, rather sad features framed by the white linen head-dress, and tried to speak. She endeavoured to reply, but so weak was she after a whole day and night without food, that she suddenly fainted.

It was some time before she recovered consciousness, but as soon as she was sufficiently calm she gave them a brief account of what had happened. She said nothing about her husband’s latest exploit, but merely told them how she had left him because of his neglect and brutality, combined with the fact that she had made the astounding discovery that he was a thief.

They sat beside her, listening attentively to her story, and expressing the deepest sympathy.

Then, after a quarter of an hour’s conversation, the two sisters agreed that they could not leave her there alone, and suggested that she should accompany them to the convent, situated a few kilometres out of Paris, close to Enghien.

So, after taking her to a small restaurant near and giving her some food, they took a taxi to the Gare du Nord, and half an hour later entered the big convent of the Order, a grey, inartistic, but spacious place, with large shady gardens at the rear, sloping down to the Lake of Enghien.

In the heavy door was a small grille, and when one of the sisters rang the clanging bell a woman’s face peered forth at them with curiosity before admitting them.

Jean, in her weak, nervous state, had visions of long, stone corridors, of ghostly figures in black habits and white caps moving noiselessly, and of a peace and silence entirely strange to her. Inside, no one spoke. Save those conducting her to the rooms of the Mother Superior, all were mute.

On every wall was a crucifix, and at each corner in a small niche stood a statue of the Holy Virgin.

They passed by the fine chapel, and Jean saw the long, stained-glass windows, the rows of empty chairs, and the Roman Catholic altar, the burning candles reflecting upon the burnished gilt, and the arum lilies in the big brass vases on either side.

At last, shown into a large bare room, the walls of which were panelled half-way up—a room bare, austere, and comfortless, with an utter lack of any attempt at decoration—Jean sank into a big leather-covered arm-chair, and one of the sisters took the old black shawl from her shoulders.

A few minutes later there entered an elderly, stately woman, with hard mouth and aquiline nose, yet in whose eyes was a pleasant, sympathetic expression—a woman very calm, very possessed, even austere. She was the Mother Superior.

With her was another sister, also a probationer in the white dress, big apron, and cap with strings, proclaiming her to be a nurse.

The two sisters who had found the poor girl introduced her to the Mother Superior, who at first looked askance at her and whose manner was by no means cordial.

She heard all in silence, gazing coldly at the girl seated in the chair.

Then she questioned her in a hard, unmusical voice.

“You have been brought up in London—eh?”

“Yes, madame. I was a modiste, and my father was a restaurant keeper.”

“You speak English?”

“Quite well, madame. I have lived there ten years.”

“We have a branch of the sisterhood in England—near Richmond. Perhaps you know it?”

“Yes, madame. I remember my father pointing the convent out to me.”

“Ah, you know it!” exclaimed the elder woman. “I was there last year.”

Then she reverted to Jean’s husband, asking where they were married, and many details concerning their life since that event.

To all the questions Jean replied frankly and openly. All she concealed was the fact that Ralph and Adolphe had committed a burglary on the night when she had taken her departure.

“I could not stand it any longer, madame,” she assured the Mother Superior, with hot tears in her big eyes. “He tried to strike me, but his friend prevented him.”

“His friend sympathised with you—eh?” remarked the woman, who had had much experience of the wrongs of other women.

“Yes, madame.”

“In love with you? Answer me that truthfully!” she asked sternly.

“I—I—I really don’t know,” was the reply, and a hot flush came to her pale cheeks.

The questioner’s lips grew harder.

“But it is plain,” she said. “That man was in love with you! Did he ever suggest that you should leave your husband?”

“No—never—never!” she declared very emphatically. “He never made such a suggestion.”

“He did not know your intention of leaving your home?”

“No. He knew nothing.”

The Mother Superior was silent for a few moments, surveying the pale, despairing little figure in the huge carved chair; then, with a woman’s sympathy, she advanced towards her and, placing her hand upon her shoulder, said:

“My child, I believe your story. I feel that it is true. The man who was a criminal deceived you, and you were right to leave him to his own devices, if he refused to listen to your appeal to him to walk in the path of honesty. To such as you our Order extends its protection. Remain here with us, child, and your home in future shall be a home of peace, and your life shall be spent in doing good to others, according to the Divine command.”

At her words the three sisters bent to her enthusiastically, calling her by her Christian name; while Jean, on her part, raised the thin, bony hand of the Mother Superior and kissed it in deep gratitude.

From that moment she became a probationer, and joined the peaceful, happy circle who kept their religious observations so rigidly, and who, during the hours of recreation, chattered and made merry together as women will.

In her white dress, linen apron, and flat cap with strings, her first duties were in the linen-room, where she employed her time in sewing, with three other probationers as companions, while each day she attended a class for instruction in first aid in nursing.

Thus the weeks went on until, in the month of November, the Mother Superior came to her one afternoon with the news—not altogether welcome—that as she spoke English so well, it had been arranged that she should be transferred to the branch in London, and that she was to leave in two days’ time.

So attached had she become to them all that she burst into tears and appealed to be allowed to remain. The matter, however, had been decided by the Council of the Order, therefore to stay was impossible. The only hope that the Mother Superior held out was that she might come back to Paris at frequent intervals as a visitor.

Long and many were the leave-takings, but at last came the hour of her departure.

Then, with a final farewell to the Mother Superior, she entered the taxi with her small belongings and drove to the Gare du Nord, where, in the black habit of the Order, she took train for London.

The journey by way of Calais and Dover had no novelty for her. She had done it several times before. But on the arrival platform at Charing Cross she saw two sisters of her Order awaiting her, and was quickly welcomed by them.

Then, hailing a taxi, the three drove at once away through Kensington, across Hammersmith Bridge, along Castlenau, across Barnes Common, and at last into Roehampton Lane, that long, narrow thoroughfare which, even to-day, retains a semi-rural aspect, its big, old-fashioned houses surrounded by spacious grounds, and its several institutions which have been built on sites of mansions demolished during the past five years or so.

The Convent of Saint Agnes was a big building, constructed specially by the Order some twenty years ago. Shut off from the dusty, narrow roads by a high, grey wall with a small, arched door as the only entrance, it stood about half-way between the border of Barnes Common and Richmond Park, a place with many little arched windows and a niche with a statue of the Virgin over the door.

Here the Mother Superior—a woman slightly older than the directress in Paris, but with a face rather more pleasant—welcomed her warmly, and before the next day had passed Jean had settled down to her duties—the same as those in Paris, the mending of linen, at which she had become an adept.

In the dull November days, as she sat at the window of the linen-room overlooking the frost-bitten garden with its leafless trees and dead flowers, she fell to wondering how Ralph fared. She wondered how all her friends were at the Maison Collette, and who was now proprietor of her dead father’s little restaurant in Oxford Street.

Through the open windows of her little cubicle, in the silence of night, she could see the red glare over London, and could hear the distant roar of the great Metropolis. Oft-times she lay thinking for hours, thinking and wondering what had become of the man she so unwisely loved—the man who had destroyed all her fondest hopes and illusions.

December went on, a new year dawned—a year of new hopes and new resolutions.

She had settled down in her new home, and, among the English sisters, found herself just as happy as she had been at Enghien. No one in the whole sisterhood was more attentive to her instruction, both religious and in nursing, for she was looking forward with hope that by March she would pass from the grade of probationer to that of nurse, and that she would soon go forth upon her errands of mercy among the poor and afflicted.

And so, after the storm and stress of life in the underworld of Paris, Jean Ansell lived in an atmosphere of devotion, of perfect happiness, and blissful peace.