“Of course I am.  Haven’t I said so?  Don’t you see I am?  And you have brought beautiful weather with you, Louise.  Was there ever a more beautiful day?  White clouds rising up in the blue sky like great ships, sail over sail.”

“My dear Evelyn, I have not come to talk to you about clouds, nor green trees, though the birds are singing beautifully here, and it would be pleasant to talk about them if we were going to be alone the whole afternoon.  But as the nuns may come round the corner at any minute I had better ask you at once if you are going to stop here?”

“Is that what you have come to ask me?”

Evelyn got up, though they had only just sat down.

“Evelyn, dear, sit down.  You are not angry with me for asking you these questions?  What do you think I came here for?”

“You came here, then, as Reverend Mother suspected, to try to persuade me away?  You would like to have me back on the stage?”

“Of course we should like to have you back among us again.  Owen Asher—­”

“Louise, you mustn’t speak to me of my past life.”

“Ulick—­”

“Still less of him.  You have come here, sent by Owen Asher or by Ulick Dean—­which is it?”

“My dear Evelyn, I came here because we have always been friends and for old friendship’s sake—­by nobody.”

These words seemed to reassure her, and she sat down by her friend, saying that if Louise only knew the trouble she had been through.

“But all that is forgotten... if it can be forgotten.  Do you know if our sins are ever forgotten, Louise?”

“Sins, Evelyn?  What sins?  The sin of liking one man a little better than another?”

“That is exactly it, Louise.  The sin and the shame are in just what you have said—­liking one man better than another.  But I wish, Louise, you wouldn’t speak to me of these things, for I’ll have to get up and go back to the convent.”

“Well, Evelyn, let us talk about the white clouds going by, and how beautiful the wood is when the sun is shining, flecking the ground with spots of light; birds are singing in the branches, and that thrush!  I have never heard a better one.”  Louise walked a little way.  Returning to Evelyn quickly, she said, “There are all kinds of birds here—­linnets, robins, yes, and a blackbird.  A fine contralto!”

“But why, Louise, do you begin to talk about clouds and birds?”

“Well, dear, because you won’t talk about our friends.”

“Or is it because you think I must be mad to stay here and to wear this dress?  You are quite wrong if you think such a thing, for it was to save myself from going mad that I came here.”

“My dear Evelyn, what could have put such ideas into your head?”

“Louise, we mustn’t talk of the past.  I can see you are astonished at this dress, yet you are a Catholic of a sort, but still a Catholic.  I was like you once, only a change came.  One day perhaps you will be like me.”