“But, my child, all sins can be forgiven.  Have you confessed?”

“Yes, Mother, I confessed before I left Italy, and then came on here feeling that I must see you; I only wanted to see you.  Now I must go.”

“No, my child, you mustn’t go; we will talk of this to-morrow.”

“No, let us never talk of it again, that I beseech you, Mother; promise me that we shall never talk of it again.”

“As you like, as you like.  Perhaps every one knows her own soul best....  It is not for me to pry into yours.  You have confessed, and your grief is great.”

The Prioress went back to her chair, feeling relieved, thinking it was well that Evelyn had confessed her sin to some Italian priest who did not know her, for it would be inconvenient for Father Daly to know Evelyn’s story.  Evelyn could be of great use to them; it were well, indeed, that she had not even confessed to her.  She must not leave the convent; and arriving at that conclusion, suddenly she rang the bell.  Nothing was said till the lay sister knocked at the door.  “Will you see, Sister Agnes, that Sister Evelyn’s bed is prepared for her?”

“In the guest-room or in the novitiate, Reverend Mother?”

“In the novitiate,” the Prioress answered.

Evelyn had sunk again into a stupor, and, only half-conscious of what was happening to her, she followed the lay sister out of the Prioress’s room.

“It is very late,” the Prioress said to herself, “all the lights in the convent should be out; but the rule doesn’t apply to me.”  And she put more coal on the fire, feeling that she must give all her mind to the solution of the question which had arisen—­whether Evelyn was to remain with them to-morrow.  It had almost been decided, for had she not told Sister Agnes to take Evelyn to the novitiate?  But Evelyn might herself wish to leave to-morrow, and if so what inducements, what persuasion, what pressure should be used to keep her?  And how far would she be justified in exercising all her influence to keep Evelyn?  The Prioress was not quite sure.  She sat thinking.  Evelyn in her present state of mind could not be thrown out of the convent.  The convent was necessary for her salvation in this world and in the next.

“She knows that, and I know it.”

The Prioress’s thoughts drifted into recollections of long ago; and when she awoke from her reverie it seemed that she must have been dreaming a long while:  “too long” she thought; “but I have not thought of these things for many a year....  Evelyn has confessed, her sins are behind her, and it would be so inconvenient—­” The Prioress’s thoughts faded away; for even to herself she did not like to admit that it would be inconvenient for Evelyn to confess to Father Daly the sins she had committed—­if she had committed any.  Perhaps it might be all an aberration, an illusion in the interval between her father’s death and her return to the convent.  “Her sins have been absolved, and for guidance she will not turn to Father Daly but to me.”  The Reverend Mother reflected that a man would not be able to help this woman with his advice.  She thought of Evelyn’s terror, and how she had cried, “I am done for, I am done for!” She remembered the tears upon Evelyn’s cheeks and every attitude so explicit of her grief.