Evelyn opened her eyes.

“Telling the truth!  But do they come in the summer-time in the garden, while the sun is out?”

“Yes, they do; and very often they come to one in the evening... but more often at night.”

Evelyn stood looking into Veronica’s face without speaking, and at that moment the bell rang.

“We have only just got time,” Veronica said, “to get into chapel.”

“What can she mean?  Counterparts visiting the nuns in the twilight... at night!  Who are these counterparts?” Evelyn asked herself.  “The idle fancies of young girls, of course.”  But she was curious to hear what these were, and on the first favourable opportunity she introduced the subject, saying: 

“What did you mean, Veronica, when you said that it was strange I had been in the convent so long without finding my counterpart?”

“I didn’t say that, Teresa.  I said without a counterpart finding you out, or that is what I meant to say.  It is the counterpart which seeks us, not we the counterpart.  It would be wrong for us to seek one.  You know what I said about your singing, how it disturbed me and prevented me from praying?  Well, sometimes a memory of your singing precedes the arrival of my counterpart.”

“But did you not say that Sister Mary John was my counterpart?”

Veronica answered that Sister Mary John may have thought so.

“But she is a choir sister.”  And to this Veronica did not know what answer to make.  The silence was not broken for a long while, each continuing her work, wondering when the other would speak.  “Have all the nuns counterparts?”

“I don’t know anything about the choir sisters, but Rufina and Jerome have.  Cecilia is too stupid, and no counterpart ever seems to come to her.  Sister Angela has the most beautiful counterpart in the world, except mine!” And the girl’s eyes lit up.

Evelyn was on the point of asking her to describe her visitor, but, fearing to be indiscreet, she asked Veronica to tell her who were the counterparts, and whence they came.  Veronica could tell her nothing, and, untroubled by theory or scruple, she seemed to drift away—­ perhaps into the arms of her spiritual lover.  On rousing her from her dream Evelyn learnt that Sister Angela, who was fond of reading the Bible, had discovered many texts anent counter-partial love.  Which these could be Evelyn wondered, and Veronica quoted the words of the Creed, “Christ descended into hell.”

“But the counterpart doesn’t emanate out of hell?”

A look of pain came into the nun’s face, and she reminded Evelyn that Christ was away for three days between his death and his resurrection, and there were passages she remembered in Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, which seemed to point to the belief that he descended into hell, at all events that he had gone underground; but of this Veronica had no knowledge, she could only repeat what Sister Angela had said—­that when Christ descended into hell, the warders of the gates covered their faces, so frightened were they, not having had time to lock the gates against him, and all hell was harrowed.  But Christ had walked on, preaching to those men and women who had been drowned in the Flood, and they had gone up to heaven with him.