n the twilight...
at night! Who are these counterparts?" Evelyn asked herself. "The
idle fancies of young girls, of course." But she was curious to hear
what these were, and on the first favourable opportunity she
introduced the subject, saying:

"What did you mean, Veronica, when you said that it was strange I had
been in the convent so long without finding my counterpart?"

"I didn't say that, Teresa. I said without a counterpart finding you
out, or that is what I meant to say. It is the counterpart which
seeks us, not we the counterpart. It would be wrong for us to seek
one. You know what I said about your singing, how it disturbed me and
prevented me from praying? Well, sometimes a memory of your singing
precedes the arrival of my counterpart."

"But did you not say that Sister Mary John was my counterpart?"

Veronica answered that Sister Mary John may have thought so.

"But she is a choir sister." And to this Veronica did not know what
answer to make. The silence was not broken for a long while, each
continuing her work, wondering when the other would speak. "Have all
the nuns counterparts?"

"I don't know anything about the choir sisters, but Rufina and Jerome
have. Cecilia is too stupid, and no counterpart ever seems to come to
her. Sister Angela has the most beautiful counterpart in the world,
except mine!" And the girl's eyes lit up.

Evelyn was on the point of asking her to describe her visitor, but,
fearing to be indiscreet, she asked Veronica to tell her who were the
counterparts, and whence they came. Veronica could tell her nothing,
and, untroubled by theory or scruple, she seemed to drift away--
perhaps into the arms of her spiritual lover. On rousing her from her
dream Evelyn learnt that Sister Angela, who was fond of reading the
Bible, had discovered many texts anent counter-partial love. Which
these could be Evelyn wondered, and Veronica quoted the words of the
Creed, "Christ descended into hell."

"But the counterpart doesn't emanate out of hell?"

A look of pain came into the nun's face, and she reminded Evelyn that
Christ was away for three days between his death and his
resurrection, and there were passages she remembered in Paul, in the
Epistle to the Romans, which seemed to point to the belief that he
descended into hell, at all events that he had gone underground; but
of this Veronica had no knowledge, she could only repeat what Sister
Angela had said--that when Christ descended into