The long road home - By Danielle Steel Page 0,86

the Mother Superior was concerned, and she would have to do a great deal of praying herself, she knew, to forgive it. He had had no right to do this to her. He had been in a situation of extreme trust here. She was a young, innocent girl, and he should have known better.

“You have no choice in this matter, Gabriella. You are leaving here tomorrow. And you will be carefully watched until you go, so don't try to reach him. If you choose to stay with us, and that choice is still yours, you must carefully think about what you've done, and decide if you really want to be here. I offered you every opportunity to go back to the world for a time, to be part of it, if that's what you wanted to do, and you refused it. But at no time did that include consorting with a priest in clandestine meetings.”

“I didn't,” Gabbie said, looking agonized, and hating herself for the lies she was telling, but she felt she had to, if only for his sake.

“I wish I could believe you.” The Mother Superior stood up then, and signaled in no uncertain terms that the meeting was over. “You may go back to your room now. You will not speak to the other postulants for the rest of the day, or until you leave. One of the Sisters in the kitchen will bring a tray to your room, but you may not speak to her either.” Overnight, she had become a leper. And without a word she left the room, and went back upstairs, desperate to call him, but there was no way she could do it. All she knew was that she could not go to Oklahoma. She would not leave him.

She lay on her bed all that day, thinking of him, and by nightfall she was in a total state. She had written to him in her journal all day, and when she wasn't writing or lying down, she paced, wishing she could at least get out to the garden, but she knew she couldn't. She could not defy Mother Gregoria's orders any further. And all day she wondered what they were doing to him, and what he was saying to the archbishop. But neither of them had ever thought for a moment this would be easy. They had both known that from the beginning. Now all they had to do was survive the pain and humiliation until they could be together.

She never touched the food that came to her that day, and it was after dinnertime when she felt a strange pain low in her belly. It took her breath away at first, and then disappeared, and in a little while, it was followed by another. Gabriella had no idea what it meant, but she was in such a state worrying about Joe that she scarcely noticed. And by the time the other two postulants returned to the room, she was in bed, in agony, but she said nothing to them. She knew that whatever it was, it was from sheer terror.

The others said nothing at all to her, they had been warned that Gabriella was deeply troubled and they were not to speak to her. They had no idea what she had done, or what punishment was being meted out to her, but they whispered about it constantly whenever Sister Emanuel left the room, trying to guess what had happened. Only Sister Anne remained strangely silent.

Gabriella never slept that night, thinking about him, worrying about what he had said, or what they were saying to him. She imagined something much akin to the Spanish Inquisition going on at St. Stephen's, and at two o'clock that morning, she was in so much pain, she almost called out to the others, but she couldn't. What could she tell them? She could hardly say she was afraid she might lose her baby. Instead, she nearly crawled, hunched over, to the bathroom, and there she saw the first telltale signs of what she suspected was a serious problem. But there was no one she could turn to for help, not even Mother Gregoria this time, and surely not the others. And she had no way of reaching Joe. She had to wait to hear from him. She felt sure he would come for her, and that the whole situation would explode by morning. If he had told them he was leaving the priesthood for her, when

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