If such a life could have been--the life that poets have imagined for
despairing love! It was less than a hundred years since handsome Mrs.
Southwell followed Sir Robert Dudley to Italy, disguised as a page. But
the age of romance was past. The modern world had only laughter for such
dreams.
That revelation of Hyacinth's jealousy had brought matters to a crisis.
Something must be done, Angela told herself, and quickly, to set her
right with her sister, and in her own esteem. She had to choose between a
loveless marriage and the Convent. By accepting one or the other she must
prove that she was not the slave of a dishonourable love.
Marriage or the Convent? It had been easy, contemplating the step from a
distance, to choose the Convent. But when she thought of it, to-night, amid
the exquisite beauty of these woods, with the moonlit valley lying at her
feet, the winding streams reflecting that silvery light, or veiled in a
pale haze--to-night, in the liberty and loveliness of the earth, the vision
of Convent walls filled her with a shuddering horror. To be shut in that
Flemish garden for ever; her life enclosed within the straight lines of
that long green alley leading to a dead wall, darkened over by flowerless
ivy.
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