They stood holding each other’s hands.

“Won’t you let me kiss you before you go?”

“Please let me go; it will be better not.  The carriage is waiting; I must go.”

“But never, never to see you again!”

“Never is a long while; too long.  We shall meet in heaven, and it would be unwise to forfeit that meeting for a moment of time on this earth.”

“A moment of time on this earth,” Evelyn answered.  She stood looking out of the window like one dazed; and taking advantage of her abstraction Sister Mary John left the room.  The Prioress came into the library.

“Mother, what does this mean?  Why did you let her go?”

The Prioress sat down slowly and looked at Evelyn without speaking.

“Mother, you might have let her stay, for my sake.”

“I allowed her to see you before she left, and that was the most I could do, under the circumstances.”

“The most you could do under the circumstances?  I don’t understand.  Mother, you might have asked her to wait.  She acted on impulse.”

“No, Teresa, she came to me some weeks ago to tell me of her scruples.”

“Scruples!  Her love of me, you mean?”

“I see she has told you.  Yes.”

The Prioress was about to ask her about her vows; but the present was not the moment to do so, and she allowed Evelyn to go back to the sacristy.

XXIX

“Veronica, she has gone away for good—­gone away to France.  All I could do—­Now I am alone here, with nobody.”

“But, Teresa, I don’t understand.  What are you speaking about?” Evelyn told her of Sister Miry John’s departure.  “You cared for her a great deal, one could see that.”

“Well, she was the one whom I have seen most of since I have been here... except you, Veronica.”  A look appeared in the girl’s face which suggested, very vaguely, of course, but still suggested, that Veronica was jealous of the nun who had gone.  Evelyn looked into the girl’s face, trying to read the dream in it, until she forgot Veronica, and remembered the nun who had gone; and when she awoke from her dream she saw Veronica still standing before her with a half-cleaned candlestick in her hand.

“She seemed so determined, and all I could say only made her more so; yet I told her I was very fond of her... and she always seemed to like me.  Why should she be so determined?”

“I should have thought you would have guessed, Teresa.”

Evelyn begged Veronica to explain, but the girl hesitated, looking at her curiously all the time saying at last: 

“It seems to me there can be only one reason for her leaving, and that was because she believed you to be her counterpart.”

“Her counterpart—­what’s that?”

“Have you been so long in the convent without knowing what a counterpart is, Teresa?  The convent is full of counterparts.  Did you never see one in the garden, in a shady corner?  You spent many hours in the garden.  I am surprised.  Are you telling the truth, Sister?”