Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen

Anthony was driven back to the convent the next morning in the cart with Florence. He was received with tears by Sister Agatha. There was a message for him to report to the mother superior. She had already relented and had made up her mind to give the boy only a sharp lesson and allow him to continue with Father Xavier. That the priest had already made other arrangements for bestowing the lad, she did not yet know.

His room and the court seemed warm and pleasantly familiar to Anthony. It was home after all. He was glad to see the madonna, but it was with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that he threaded the maze of long corridors leading to the mother superior's room. One was not summoned there for trifles. Already the outside world seemed distant and ineffectual. His feet raised stony echoes that might call a dangerous attention to himself. He began to walk on tiptoe.