Monte-Cristos Daughter | Page 7

of her woman's future.
The Viscount Massetti, though he had professed himself willing to wait, was, on his side, thoroughly discontented with the arduous task he had undertaken. It was one thing to make a rash promise in the heat of enthusiasm, but quite another to keep it, especially when that promise involved a separation from the lovely girl who had inextricably entwined herself about the fibres of his heart and was the sole guiding star of his life and love.
The convent school of the Sacred Heart was located in the convent of that Sisterhood, about three miles beyond the Porta del Popolo on the northern side of Rome. The convent was a spacious edifice, but gloomy and forbidding, with the aspect of a prison. Narrow, barred windows, like those of a dungeon of the middle ages, admitted the light from without, furnishing a dim, restricted illumination that gave but little evidence of the power and brilliancy of the orb of day. At night the faint, sepulchral blaze of candles only served to make the darkness palpable and more ghastly.
The huge school-room was as primitive and comfortless in its appointments and furniture as well could be. The walls were of dressed stone and loomed up bare and grisly to a lofty ceiling that was covered with a perfect labyrinth of curiously carved beams, the work of some unknown artist of long ago. The scholars' dormitories were narrow cell-like affairs, scantily furnished, in which every light must be extinguished at the hour of nine in the evening. Once admitted to the school, the pupils were not permitted to leave its precincts save at vacation or at the termination of their course of studies, a circumstance that heartily disgusted the gay, light-hearted Italian girls sent there to receive both mental and moral training. Another source of grave vexation to them was the regulation, already alluded to, that rigorously excluded all male visitors, with the exception of parents or guardians.
Attached to the convent was an extensive garden, full of huge trees that had, apparently, stood there for centuries, so bent, gnarled and aged were they. An ancient gardener, with a flowing beard as white as snow and scanty locks of the same spotless hue, aided by two or three assistants almost as ancient as himself, attended to the lawns and vast flower-beds, the latter being kept constantly filled with plants of gorgeous bloom and exquisite fragrance. The picturesque appearance of the garden contrasted strongly and strangely with the rigid and staid aspect of the convent edifice, and this garden was the one spot where the pupils felt at home and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They were allowed to walk there at noon and towards twilight in the evening, under the supervision of Sister Agatha, a sharp-sighted and vigilant nun, who never failed to rebuke and correct her vivacious charges for even the slightest infraction of discipline. Still, the girls enjoyed themselves in the garden, for its extent and the fact that Sister Agatha could not be everywhere at once enabled the frisky and light-hearted pupils to indulge in many an escapade.
One noon Zuleika, who was in an unusually despondent frame of mind, strayed from the rest of her companions and strolled beneath the centenarian trees. Unconsciously she approached the lofty wall of the garden. She seated herself at the foot of a gnarled old elm, the leafy branches of which descended to the ground and effectually screened Monte-Cristo's daughter from view. At least, so she thought, but though she could not be seen by any within the garden enclosure she was plainly visible from the wall and the trees looming above it without.
As Zuleika sat pondering on her lot and sadly thinking of her separation from her lover, she heard or imagined she heard a singular noise amid the thick boughs of an immense chestnut tree immediately outside the garden wall. She started up in affright, but could discern nothing unusual, and the singular noise was not repeated. The strangest part of the whole affair, however, was that the noise had sounded like her own name uttered by a human voice. This increased her terror and confusion, and she was about to flee from the spot when an oblong pebble to which something white was attached fluttered over the wall and fell at her feet. She was now more alarmed then ever and took several steps backward, the while regarding the white object that lay where it had fallen, motionless and fascinating.
Finally her curiosity obtained the mastery, and, approaching the suspicious object with the utmost caution, she bent over to examine it. It was an ordinary envelope and, no doubt, contained a letter. For whom was it intended? Obviously for one of the pupils. It was a clandestine epistle, too, otherwise it would have come