“I daresay he wouldn’t.”  And they walked a little way in silence.  “You were telling me of your project for a school, Sister Winifred.”

Sister Winifred entered into the details.  But she had unduly excited Father Daly, and he could not listen.

“My position here,” he said, interrupting her, “is an impossible one.  The only ones here who consider my advice are the lay sisters, the admirable lay sisters who work from morning till evening, and forego their prayers lest you should want for anything.  You know I’m treated very nearly with contempt by almost all the choir sisters.  You think I don’t know that I am spoken of as a mere secular priest?  Every suggestion of mine meets with a rude answer.  You have witnessed a good deal of this, Sister Winifred.  I daresay you’ve forgotten, but I remember it all... you have come to speak to me here because the Prioress will not allow you to spend more than three minutes in the confessional, arrogating to herself the position of your spiritual adviser, only allowing to me what is to her no more than the mechanical act of absolution.  In her eyes I am a mere secular priest, incapable of advising those who live in an Order!  Do you think I haven’t noticed her deference to the very slightest word that Father Ambrose deigns to speak to her?  Her rule doesn’t apply to his confessional, only to mine—­a rule which I have always regarded as extremely unorthodox; I don’t feel at all sure that the amateur confessional which she carries on upstairs wouldn’t be suppressed were it brought under the notice of Rome; I have long been determined to resist it, and I beg of you, Sister Winifred, when you come to me to confession to stay as long as you think proper.  On this matter I now see that the Prioress and I must come to an understanding.”

“But not a word.  Father Daly, must we breathe to her of what I have come to tell you about.  The relaxation of our Order must be referred to the Bishop, and with your support.”

They walked for some yards in silence, Father Daly reflecting on the admirable qualities of Sister Winifred, her truthfulness and her strength of character which had brought her to him; Sister Winifred congratulating herself on how successfully she had deceived Father Daly and thinking how she might introduce another subject into the conversation (a delicate one it was to introduce); so she began to talk as far away as possible from the subject which she wished to arrive at.  The founders of the Orders seemed to her the point to start from; the conversation could be led round to the question of how much time was wasted on meditation; it would be easy to drop a sly hint that the meditations of the nuns were not always upon the Cross; she managed to do this so adroitly that Father Daly fell into the trap at once.