“Now, what is it that I hear about a refusal to get up to take your watch?  Such a thing—­”

“Not laziness, Mother.  Mother, if you knew what my dream was, you would understand it was impossible for me to watch before the Sacrament.”

“A dream!”

Cecilia didn’t answer.

“You can tell me your dream...I shall be able to judge for myself.”

“No, no; it is too frightful!” And Cecilia fell upon her knees.

“One isn’t responsible for one’s dreams.”

“Is that so, Mother?  But if one prays?”

“But you don’t pray for dreams?”

“Not for the dream I had last night.”

“Well, for what did you pray?  Praying for dreams, Cecilia, is entirely contrary to the rule, or to the spirit of the rule.”

“But Veronica, Angela, Rufina—­they all pray that their counterparts may visit them.”

“Counterparts!” the old woman answered.  “What are you talking about?”

“Must I tell you?”

“Of course you must tell me.”

“But it will seem like spite on my part.”

“Spite!  Spite?”

“Because they have gotten beautiful counterparts through their prayers, whereas—­Oh, Mother, I cannot tell you.”

The Prioress forgot the stupid girl at her feet.

“Counterparts!”

“Who visit them.”

“Counterparts visiting them!  You don’t mean that anybody comes into the convent?”

“Only in dreams.”

Cecilia tried to explain, but stumbled in her explanation so often that the Reverend Mother interrupted her: 

“Cecilia, you are talking nonsense!  I have never heard anything like it before!”

“But what I am telling you, Mother, is in the gospel Nicodemus—­”

“Gospel of Nicodemus!”

“The harrowing of hell!”

“But what has all this got to do—­I cannot understand you.”

The story was begun again and again.

“Veronica’s counterpart an angel, with luminous tints in his flesh; Angela’s a child drowned in Noah’s flood!  But—­” The Prioress checked her words.  Had all the novices taken leave of their senses?  Had they gone mad?...  It looked like it.  Anyhow, this kind of thing must be put a stop to and at once.  She must get the whole truth out of this stupid girl at her feet, who blubbered out her story, obviously trying to escape punishment by incriminating others.

“So you were praying that an angel might visit you; but what came was quite different?”

“Mother, Mother!” howled Cecilia; “it was a dwarf, but I didn’t want him in my bed.  I’ve been punished enough....  Anything more horrible—­”

“In your bed!... anything so horrible?  What do you mean?”

“Am I to tell you?  Must I?”

“Certainly.”

“After all, it was only a dream.”

“Go on.”

“First I was awakened by a smell coming down the chimney.”