Evelyn hummed the plain chant under her breath, afraid lest she should extinguish the pale voices, and surprised how expressive the antique chant was when sung by these etiolated, sexless voices.  She had never known how much of her life of passion and desire had entered into her voice, and she was shocked at its impurity.  Her singing sounded like silken raiment among sackcloth, and she lowered her voice, feeling it to be indecorous and out of place in the antique hymn.  Her voice, she felt, must have revealed her past life to the nuns, her voice must have shocked them a little; her voice must have brought the world before them too vividly.  For all her life was in her voice, she would never be able to sing this hymn with the same sexless grace as they did.  Her voice would be always Evelyn Innes—­Owen Asher’s mistress.

The priest turned the Host toward them, and she saw the two long rows of grey-habited nuns leaning their veiled heads, and knew that this was the moment they lived for, the essential moment when the body which the Redeemer gave in expiation of the sins of the world is revealed.  Evelyn’s soul hushed in awe, and all that she had renounced seemed very little in this moment of mystery and exaltation.

“What am I to say, Miss Innes?  I shall think of this day when I am an old woman.  But you’ll sing again before you leave?”

“Yes, sister, whenever you like.”

“When I like?  That would be all day.  But I did follow you in the duet, I was so anxious.  I hope I did not spoil it?”

“I was never better accompanied.  You made no mistake.”

As they passed by her the other nuns thanked her under their breath.  She could see that they looked upon her as a providence sent by God to save them from being cast back upon the world they dreaded, the world from which they had fled.  But all this extraordinary drama, this intensity of feeling, remained inarticulate.  They could only say, “Thank you, Miss Innes; it was very good of you to come to sing for us.”  It was their very dumbness that made them seem so wonderful.  It was the dumbness of these women—­they could only speak in prayer—­it was that that overcame her.  But the Reverend Mother was different.  Evelyn listened to her, thinking of nothing but her, and when the Reverend Mother left her, Evelyn moved away, still under the spell of the authoritative sweetness which her presence and manner exhaled.  But the Reverend Mother was only a part of a scheme of life founded on principles the very opposite to those on which she had attempted to construct her life.  Even in singing the “Ave Maria,” she had not been able to subdue her vanity.  Her pleasure in singing it had in a measure sprung out of the somewhat mean desire to proclaim her superiority over those who had attained the highest plane by renouncing all personal pride.  They had proclaimed their superiority in their obeisance.  It was in giving, not in receiving, praise that we rise above ourselves.