She had made for herself a little treasure-house of grace laid up, to be offered for Giovanni's soul, and the gold of her affliction and the jewels of her unselfish labours had been gathered there to help him.

That had been her simple and innocent belief, but it had broken down suddenly as soon as she discovered that she was only a human, resentful, regretful woman after all, as far below the mystic detachment from the outward world as she had been in those first days of her grief, at Madame Bernard's, when she had sat listless all the day long, a broken-hearted girl.

What she had taken for gold and had stored up for Giovanni's welfare was only the basest metal, her jewels were but chips of gaudy glass, her sacrifice was a failure after all.

Worse than that, her dead man came back alive from his grave and haunted her in dreams, threatening righteous judgment on the woman who had cheated her and him of earthly happiness.
I shall not dwell on what she felt.

Men and women who have honestly tried to lead the good life for years and have suddenly realised that they are as human as ever before, will understand what I have written.
The rest must either believe that it is true or, not believing, read on for the sake of knowing Sister Giovanna's strange story, or else throw my book aside for a dull novel not worth reading.