Did the woman with the marble face think that she, too, was made of stone?
Not see the man she had loved, who had been suddenly, violently dead, who was alive again, and had come back to her?
The Mother could not be in earnest! If she was, why did she not answer now?
Why was she sitting there, with that strange look, silently wringing her hands?
Even in her cruel distress Sister Giovanna felt a sort of wonder.
Perhaps the Mother had not meant what she said, and would not speak lest she should contradict herself.

The mere thought was a hope; whether for good or evil the tortured girl knew not, but it loosed her tongue.
'He will come to me!' she cried.

'He will, I tell you! You do not know him! Did you hear his voice as I did when he called me?
Did you see his face?
Could walls or bars keep such a man from the woman he loves?
I must face him myself, and to face him I must kill something in me--cut it out, tear it up from its roots--I am only a woman after all! A nun can be a woman still, a weak woman, who has loved a man very, very dearly----' 'Oh, Angela, hush! For the love of Heaven, my child, my child!' To Sister Giovanna's unspeakable amazement, the unbending nature was breaking down, the marble saint, with the still white face, who had bidden her pray, and never see Giovanni again.

She felt herself lifted from her seat and clasped in a despairing embrace; she felt the small nervous frame shaking in the storm of an emotion she could not understand, though she knew it was as great as her own and as terrible to bear, and that the heart that beat against hers was breaking, too.
Neither shed a tear; tears would have been heavenly refreshment, but they would not come.

Another moment and Angela felt herself sinking back into her chair, and when she opened her eyes the Mother Superior was at the table, half seated, half lying across it, on the heaps of papers and account-books, and her outstretching hands clasped the foot of the old crucifix beside the leaden inkstand.
'Miserere mei, Domine!' The voice of her prayer broke the stillness like a silver bell.