“You seem very sad, Mother?”

“Yes, I am sad; but you are not the cause of my sadness, though what you have come to tell me is sad enough.  I was just coming to the conclusion, when you came into the room, that things must take their course.  God is good; his guiding hand is in everything, so I suppose all that is happening is for the best.  But it is difficult to see whither it is tending, if it be not towards the dissolution of the Order.”

“The dissolution of the Order, Mother!”

“Well, if not of its dissolution, at all events of a change in the rule.  You know that many here—­Mother Philippa, Sister Winifred, aided and abetted by Father Daly—­are anxious for a school, and we can only have a school by becoming an active Order.  You have helped us a great deal, and our debts are no longer as pressing as they were; but we still owe a good deal of money, and as you do not intend to become a member of the community you will take your money away with you.  And this fact will strengthen the opposition against me.”

The Prioress lay back in her chair, white and frail, exhausted by the heat.

“May I pull down the blind, Mother?”

“Yes, you may, dear; the sun is very hot.”

“Your determination to leave us isn’t the only piece of bad news which reached me this morning.  Have you heard of Sister Cecilia’s adventure with her counterpart?” Evelyn nodded and tried to repress a smile.  “It is difficult not to smile, so ridiculous is her story; and if I didn’t look upon the matter as very serious, I shouldn’t be able to prevent myself from smiling.”

“But you will easily be able, Mother, to smile at this nonsense.  Veronica, who is a most pious girl, will not allow her mind to dwell on counterparts since she knows it to be a sin, or likely to lead to sin, and Angela and the others—­if there are any others—­”

“That will not make an end to the evil.  Everything, my dear Teresa, declines.  Ideas, like everything else, have their term of life.  Everything declines, everything turns to clay, and I look upon this desire for spiritual visitations as a warning that the belief which led to the founding of this Order has come to an end!  From such noble prayers as led to the founding of this Order we have declined to prayers for the visitation of counterparts.”

Evelyn was about to interrupt, but the Prioress shook her head, saying, “Well, if not the whole of the convent, at all events part of it—­several novices.”  And she told Evelyn the disease would spread from nun to nun, and that there was no way of checking it.

“Unless by becoming an active order,” Evelyn answered, “founding a school.”

The old woman rose to her feet instantly, saying that she had spoken out of a moment of weakness; and that it would be cowardly for her to give way to Mother Philippa and Sister Winifred; she would never acquiesce in any alteration of the rule.