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Show 140 It was still dark when I awakened. My head spun. I had not eaten for two days, although even if I'd had food, I could not have swallowed it - I could barely take in water. I forced my feet to follow where the road led. When the sky began to lighten a little, I saw a pond ahead at which I could drink. The bank of the pond was grown tall with reeds which I pushed apart to reach the water. Reeds! Sister Agatha had made me whistles from reeds growing near a pond close to the convent. I stood up and looked around me. By the undertain light of dawn I thought I could make out a crumbling wall in the distance, and beyond the wall the low, worn buildings of the Convent of Saint Gervase. I don't remember running the rest of the way. Over the pounding of my head I heard faint voices of women singing the morning office. Then it seemed that a heavier darkness gathered around me and I was leaning hard against a wooden door in the wall, pulling with all that remained of my strength on the bell rope, pulling again and again to make the small bell clang wildly. The door swung back and I fell to the ground. "It is Albert!" Sister Perpetua cried out. "Albert has come home!" |
