The first of all her many duties, and the most arduous, was to think for others; to work for them was a hundred times easier and was rest and refreshment by contrast.
Angela would have been very much surprised if she could have known what was passing in the Mother Superior's mind, while she herself felt nothing but relief and satisfaction because her decision had now become irrevocable.

If she had been bidden to wait another year, she would have waited patiently and without a murmur, because she could not be satisfied with anything less than apparent certainty; but instead, she had been encouraged to take the final step, after which there could be no return.
That was the inevitable.

Human destiny is most tragic when the men and women concerned are doing their very utmost to act bravely and uprightly, while each is in reality bringing calamity on the other.
Acting on the only evidence she had a right to trust, the Mother Superior knew that she would not be justified in hindering Angela from taking the veil.

Few had ever done so well in the noviciate, none had ever done better, and her natural talent for the profession of nursing was altogether unusual.

There had never been one like her in the hospital.