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And so each one took the startling intelligence according to her character, and soon all work was suspended, and every inmate of Sharon was gathered in unwonted excitement in the halls and the common room.

When Tabea passed out of the low-barred door of Sharon she met the radiant face of Scheible, who had tied his two saddle horses a little way off.

“Come quickly, Tabea,” he said with impatience.

“No, Daniel; it won’t do to be rude. I must tell Brother Friedsam good-by.”

“No, don’t,” said Daniel, turning pale with terror. “If you go in to see the director you will never come with me.”

“Why won’t I?” laughed the defiant girl.

“He’s a wizard, and has charms that he gets out of his great books. Don’t go in there; you’ll never get away.”

Daniel held to the Pennsylvania Dutch superstitions, but Tabea only laughed, and said, “I am not afraid of wizards.” She looked the Hofcavalier more than ever as she left the trembling fellow and went up to the door of Brother Friedsam’s lodge.

“She isn’t afraid of the devil,” muttered Scheible.

Tabea knocked at the door.

“Come in and welcome, whoever thou art,” said the director within.

But when she had lifted the latch and pushed back the door, squeaking on its wooden hinges, Tabea found that Friedsam was engaged in some business with the prior of the convent, the learned Dr. Peter Miller, known at Ephrata as Brother Jabez. Friedsam did not at first look up. The delay embarrassed her; she had time to see, with painful clearness, all the little articles in the slenderly furnished room. She noticed that the billet of wood which lay for a pillow, according to the Ephrata custom, on a bare bench used for a bed, was worn upon one side with long use; she saw how the bell rope by means of which Friedsam called the brethren and sisters to prayers at any hour in the night, hung dangling near the bench, so that the bell might be pulled on a sudden inspiration even while the director was rising from his wooden couch; she noted the big books; and then a great reverence for his piety and learning fell upon her, and a homesick regret; and Scheible and the wedding frolic did not seem so attractive after all. Nevertheless she held up her head like a defiant Hofcavalier.

After a time Brother Jabez, with a kind greeting, passed her, and the director, looking up, said very gently:

“I wish you a very good day, Sister Tabea.”

“I am no longer Sister Tabea, but Margaretha Thome. I have said adieu to all in Sharon, and now I come to say good-by to Brother Friedsam. I am going to lay aside these garments and marry Daniel Scheible.”

She held out her hand, but Friedsam was too much stunned to see it.

“You have broken your vow! You have denied the Lord!”

There was no severity in his despondent rebuke; it had the vibration of an involuntary cry of surprise and pain.

Tabea was not prepared for this. Severity she could have defied; but this cry of a prophet awakened her own conscience, and she trembled as if she had been in the light of a clear-seeing divine judgment.

“You can speak so, Brother Friedsam, for you have no human weaknesses. I am not suited to a convent; I never can be happy here. I am not submissive. I want to be necessary to somebody. Nobody cares for me here. You do not mind whether I sing in the chorals or not, and you will be better pleased to have me away, and I am going.” Then, finding that the director remained silent, she said, with emotion: “Brother Friedsam, I have a great reverence for you, but I wish you knew something of the infirmities of a heart that wants to love and to be loved by somebody, and then maybe you would not think so very hardly of Tabea after she has gone.”