noon
After that she told me to go to sleep , and then she kissed me again , and I thought she was going to cry , but she rose hurriedly and left the room . Next morning after the getting-up bell had been rung , and I had roused myself to full consciousness , I found that four or five nuns were standing together near the door of the dormitory talking about something that had happened during the night -- Sister Angela had gone ! Half an hour afterwards when full of this exciting event , the girls went bursting down to the Meeting Room they found the nuns in great agitation over an incident of still deeper gravity -- Father Giovanni also had disappeared ! A convent school is like a shell on the shore of a creek , always rumbling with the rumour of the little sea it lives under ; and by noon the girls , who had been palpitating with curiosity , thought they knew everything that had happened -- how at four in the morning Father Giovanni and Sister Angela had been seen to come out of the little door which connected the garden with the street ; how at seven they had entered a clothing emporium in the Corso , where going in at one door as priest and nun they had come out at another as ordinary civilians ; how at eight they had taken the first train to Civita Vecchia , arriving in time to catch a steamer sailing at ten , and how they were now on their way to England . By some mysterious instinct of their sex the girls had gathered with glistening eyes in front of the chaplain 's deserted quarters , where Alma leaned against the wall with her insteps crossed and while the others talked she smiled , as much as to say , `` I told you so . '' As for me I was utterly wretched , and being now quite certain that I was the sole cause of Sister Angela 's misfortune , I was sitting under the tree in the middle of the garden , when Alma , surrounded by her usual group of girls , came down on me . `` What 's this ? ''