Her thoughts pursued their way, now and then splashing as they leaped out of the soul’s dimness.  Only the splashing of the fish broke the stillness of the garden, and startled at a sudden gurgling sound, she rose, in time to see a shadowy shape sinking with a motion of fins amid the weeds.  That she should be living in a convent, that she should have repented of her sins, that the fish should leap and fall back with strange, gurgling sound, filled her with wonderment.  The vague autumn blue expressed some vague yearning, some indistinct aspiration; the air was like crystal, the leaves were falling....  We have perceptions of the outer forms of things, but that is all we know of them.  The only thing we are sure of is what is in ourselves.  We know the difference between right and wrong.  She stood for a long time at the edge of the fish pond, gazing into the vague depths.  Then she walked, exalted, overcome by the mystery of things.  She seemed to walk upon air, the world was a-thrill with spiritual significances, all was symbol and exaltation.  Her past life shrank to a tiny speck, and she knew that she had been happy only since she had been in the convent.  Ah, that little chapel, haunted by prayers! it breathed prayer, in that chapel contemplation was never far off.  She had prayed there as she had never prayed before, and she wondered if she should attribute the difference in her prayers to the chapel or to herself.  She had always felt, in a dumb, instinctive way, that to her at least everything depended on her chastity....  She had been chaste now a long while.  The explanation seemed to have come to her.  Yes, it is by denial of the sexual instinct that we become religious.

As she passed through the orchard she caught sight of the strange little person whom she had seen in chapel with a pile of prayer books beside her, and who always wore something startlingly blue, whether skirt, handkerchief or cloak.  She had met her in the garden before, but she had hurried away, her eyes fixed on the ground.  Mother Philippa had spoken of a Miss Dingle, a simple-minded person who had been sent by her family to the convent to be looked after by the nuns, and Evelyn concluded that it must be she.  But at that moment other thoughts engaged her attention; and she lingered in the orchard, returning slowly by St. Peter’s walk.  As she passed the Georgian temple or summer-house, she was taken by a desire to examine it, and there she found Miss Dingle.  She was seated on the floor, engaged, so Evelyn thought, in a surreptitious game of Patience.  That was only how she could account for Miss Dingle’s consternation and fear at seeing her.  But what she had taken for cards were pious pictures.  Evelyn stood in the doorway, and for the first time had an opportunity of seeing what Miss Dingle was really like.  It was difficult to say whether her face was ugly or pretty; the features were not amiss—­it was the expression, vague and dim like that of an animal, that puzzled Evelyn.