Azalea said to herself as the sun rose to illuminate her bare cell with a glimmer of gold.It might have been five months, five years, or even five centuries.She felt as if she had ceased to exist, as if she were living in a void where there was no time and no future.The first night, when she had been left alone in the cell, she had cried desperately, conscious that she was not only frightened but also losing hope.How could she ever be saved, ever be rescued from this prison that was more inviolable than any gaol could be?She knew that the Nuns who entered an enclosed Order were forgotten by the world, and once they passed through the door of the Convent they had no further contact with their relations or their friends.Her uncle and aunt had been very clever, Azalea thought, in removing her so quickly from Hong Kong and incarcerating her here.It would, she was certain, be quite impossible for Lord Sheldon to find her.Even if he disbelieved the letter she had been forced to write to him, even if he received the feather of the blue magpie she had handed to Ah Yok, he would still be up against an impenetrable wall of secrecy.Azalea was quite certain that, where the Nuns were concerned, there would be no gossip.The Mother Superior would make sure that she became as anonymous as her uncle and aunt wished, and Azalea feared despairingly that sooner or later they would wear down her resistance – she would become a Catholic, and take her final vows simply because there was no alternative.Her day began at five o’clock when a bell clanged in the Convent, echoing down the empty passages.She would hear the Nuns hurrying along to what she knew was a call for the first Service of the day.Far away in the distance she would hear them chanting, their voices intoning the prayers.At six o’clock her cell door was opened and an elderly Nun brought her a broom and a bucket with which she cleaned her cell.The Nun did not speak.
