CHAPTER 52
There was a train for Turin and Paris that evening; and after the
Countess had left her Isabel had a rapid and decisive conference
with her maid, who was discreet, devoted and active. After this she
thought (except of her journey) only of one thing. She must go and see
Pansy; from her she couldn't turn away. She had not seen her yet, as
Osmond had given her to understand that it was too soon to begin.
She drove at five o'clock to a high door in a narrow street in the
quarter of the Piazza Navona, and was admitted by the portress of
the convent, a genial and obsequious person. Isabel had been at this
institution before; she had come with Pansy to see the sisters. She
knew they were good women, and she saw that the large rooms were clean
and cheerful and that the well-used garden had sun for winter and
shade for spring. But she disliked the place, which affronted and
almost frightened her; not for the world would she have spent a
night there. It produced to-day more than before the impression of a
well-appointed prison; for it was not possible to pretend Pansy was
free to leave it. This innocent creature had been presented to her
in a new and violent light, but the secondary effect of the relation
was to make her reach out a hand.
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