“It is not my fault!” exclaimed Unorna, somewhat annoyed by her persistence.  “And besides, Sister Paul, even if the devil is in it, it would be right all the same.”

The nun held up her hands in holy horror, and her jaw dropped.

“My child!  My child!  How can you say such things to me!”

“It is very true,” Unorna answered, quietly smiling at her amazement.  “If people who are ill are made well, is it not a real good, even if the Evil One does it?  Is it not good to make him do good, if one can, even against his will?”

“No, no!” cried Sister Paul, in great distress.  “Do not talk like that—­let us not talk of it at all!  Whatever it is, it is bad, and I do not understand it, and I am sure that none of us here could, no matter how well you explained it.  But if you will do it, Unorna, my dear child, then say a prayer each time, against temptation and the devil’s works.”

With that the good nun crossed herself a third time, and unconsciously, from force of habit, began to tell her beads with one hand, mechanically smoothing her broad, starched collar with the other.  Unorna was silent for a few minutes, plucking at the sable lining of the cloak which lay beside her upon the sofa where she had dropped it.

“Let us talk of other things,” she said at last.  “Talk of the other lady who is here.  Who is she?  What brings her into retreat at this time of year?”

“Poor thing—­yes, she is very unhappy,” answered Sister Paul.  “It is a sad story, so far as I have heard it.  Her father is just dead, and she is alone in the world.  The Abbess received a letter yesterday from the Cardinal Archbishop, requesting that we would receive her, and this morning she came.  His eminence knew her father, it appears.  She is only to be here for a short time, I believe, until her relations come to take her home to her own country.  Her father was taken ill in a country place near the city, which he had hired for the shooting season, and the poor girl was left all alone out there.  The Cardinal thought she would be safer and perhaps less unhappy with us while she is waiting.”

“Of course,” said Unorna, with a faint interest.  “How old is she, poor child?”

“She is not a child, she must be five and twenty years old, though perhaps her sorrow makes her look older than she is.”

“And what is her name?”

“Beatrice.  I cannot remember the name of the family.”

Unorna started.

CHAPTER XIX

“What is it?” asked the nun, noticing Unorna’s sudden movement.

“Nothing; the name of Beatrice is familiar to me, that is all.  It suggested something.”

Though Sister Paul was as unworldly as five and twenty years of cloistered life can make a woman who is naturally simple in mind and devout in thought, she possessed that faculty of quick observation which is learned as readily, and exercised perhaps as constantly, in the midst of a small community, where each member is in some measure dependent upon all the rest for the daily pittance of ideas, as in wider spheres of life.