othing was said till the lay sister knocked at the door.
"Will you see, Sister Agnes, that Sister Evelyn's bed is prepared for
her?"

"In the guest-room or in the novitiate, Reverend Mother?"

"In the novitiate," the Prioress answered.

Evelyn had sunk again into a stupor, and, only half-conscious of what
was happening to her, she followed the lay sister out of the
Prioress's room.

"It is very late," the Prioress said to herself, "all the lights in
the convent should be out; but the rule doesn't apply to me." And she
put more coal on the fire, feeling that she must give all her mind to
the solution of the question which had arisen--whether Evelyn was to
remain with them to-morrow. It had almost been decided, for had she
not told Sister Agnes to take Evelyn to the novitiate? But Evelyn
might herself wish to leave to-morrow, and if so what inducements,
what persuasion, what pressure should be used to keep her? And how
far would she be justified in exercising all her influence to keep
Evelyn? The Prioress was not quite sure. She sat thinking. Evelyn in
her present state of mind could not be thrown out of the convent. The
convent was necessary for her salvation in this world and in the
next.

"She knows that, and I know it."

The Prioress's thoughts drifted into recollections of long ago; and
when she awoke from her reverie it seemed that she must have been
dreaming a long while: "too long" she thought; "but I have not
thought of these things for many a year.... Evelyn has confessed, her
sins are behind her, and it would be so inconvenient--" The
Prioress's thoughts faded away; for even to herself she did not like
to admit that it would be inconvenient for Evelyn to confess to
Father Daly the sins she had committed--if she had committed any.
Perhaps it might be all an aberration, an illusion in the interval
between her father's death and her return to the convent. "Her sins
have been absolved, and for guidance she will not turn to Father Daly
but to me." The Reverend Mother reflected that a man would not be
able to help this woman with his advice. She thought of Evelyn's
terror, and how she had cried, "I am done for, I am done for!" She
remembered the tears upon Evelyn's cheeks and every attitude so
explicit of her grief.

"A penitent if ever there was one, one whom we must help, whom we
must lead back to God. Evelyn must remain in the convent. To-morrow
we must seek to persuade her. But it will not be difficult.