And so more than one girl in that nunnery, and out of it, too, believed in her inmost heart, though her 'Catholic principles,' by a happy inconsistency, forbade her to say so.
In a moment of excitement, fascinated by the romance of the notion, Argemone had proposed to her mother to allow her to enter this beguinage, and called in the vicar as advocate; which produced a correspondence between him and Mrs.Lavington, stormy on her side, provokingly calm on his: and when the poor lady, tired of raging, had descended to an affecting appeal to his human sympathies, entreating him to spare a mother's feelings, he had answered with the same impassive fanaticism, that 'he was surprised at her putting a mother's selfish feelings in competition with the sanctity of her child,' and that 'had his own daughter shown such a desire for a higher vocation, he should have esteemed it the very highest honour;' to which Mrs.Lavington answered, naively enough, that 'it depended very much on what his daughter was like.'-- So he was all but forbidden the house.

Nevertheless he contrived, by means of this same secret correspondence, to keep alive in Argemone's mind the longing to turn nun, and fancied honestly that he was doing God service, while he was pampering the poor girl's lust for singularity and self-glorification.
But, lately, Argemone's letters had become less frequent and less confiding; and the vicar, who well knew the reason, had resolved to bring the matter to a crisis.
So he wrote earnestly and peremptorily to his pupil, urging her, with all his subtle and refined eloquence, to make a final appeal to her mother, and if that failed, to act 'as her conscience should direct her;' and enclosed an answer from the superior of the convent, to a letter which Argemone had in a mad moment asked him to write.

The superior's letter spoke of Argemone's joining her as a settled matter, and of her room as ready for her, while it lauded to the skies the peaceful activity and usefulness of the establishment.

This letter troubled Argemone exceedingly.

She had never before been compelled to face her own feelings, either about the nunnery or about Lancelot.