So soon as she had gone into the world, she had recklessly longed for Giovanni Saracinesca's presence.
But now it was all changed.

She had not deceived herself when she had told him that she would rather not see him any more.

It was true; not only did she wish not to see him, but she earnestly desired that the love of him might pass from her heart.

With a sudden longing, her thoughts went back to the old convent-life of her girlhood, with its regular occupations, its constant religious exercises, its narrowness of view, and its unchanging simplicity.

What mattered narrowness, when all beyond that close limitation was filled with evil?
Was it not better that the lips should be busy with singing litanies than that the heart should be tormented by temptation?
Were not those simple tasks, that had seemed so all-important then, more sweet in the performance than the manifold duties of this complicated social existence, this vast web and woof of life's loom, this great machinery that worked and groaned and rolled endlessly upon its wheels without producing any more result than the ceaseless turning of a prison treadmill?
But there was no way out of life now; there was no escape, as there was also no prospect of relief, from care and anxiety.