Your letter did not reach me till afterwards.' The garden was whirling before her as if she were being put under ether, and the little twisted columns that upheld the arches of the cloister chased each other furiously, till she thought she was going to fall from her chair.

She could not hear what he said next, for a surging roar filled her ears as when the surf breaks at an angle on a long beach and sounds one deep, uninterrupted note.

He was explaining why the mail steamer had not reached Italy several days before him, but she did not understand; she only knew when he ceased speaking.
'It is the inevitable--always the inevitable,' she said, making a desperate effort and yet not saying anything she wished to say.
But her tone told him how deeply she was moved, and his fiery energy broke out.
'Nothing is inevitable!' he cried.

'There is nothing that cannot be undone, if I can live to undo it!' That was not what she expected, if she expected anything, but it brought back her controlling self that had been dazed and wandering and had left her almost helpless.

She started and turned her face full to his, but drawing back in her chair.
'What do you mean ?' she asked.
'Angela!' The appeal of love was in his voice, as he bent far forward, but she raised her hand in warning.
'No, "Sister Giovanna," please,' she said, checking him, though gently.
He felt the slight rebuke, and remembered that the place was public to the community.
'It was not by chance that you took my name with the veil,' he said, almost in a whisper.