Such, we say, might have been the turn things would have taken
with Madelon, had the uninterrupted, monotonous convent life
continued to be hers. But long before her mind was prepared
for any such influences, early in the third year after her
father's death, certain events occurred, which brought this
period of her history to an abrupt close.
How, or why the fever broke out--whether it was the result of a
damp, unhealthy winter, or through infection brought by one of
the school-children, or from any other obvious cause, we need
not inquire here. It first showed itself about the middle of
February, and within a fortnight half the nuns had taken it,
the school was broken up, and the whole convent turned into a
hospital for the sick and dying.
Two of the sisters died within the first week or two; one was
very old, so old, indeed, that the fever seemed to be only the
decisive touch needed to extinguish the feeble life, that had
been uncertainly wavering for months previously; the other was
younger, and much beloved. And then came a sense as of some
general great calamity, a sort of awe-struck mourning, with
which real grief had, perhaps, little to do.
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