Sister Paul’s face grew very grave, and she immediately crossed herself devoutly, looking askance at Unorna as she did so. But Unorna only laughed again.
“Perhaps it is very foolish,” said the nun, “but I cannot bear to hear such a thing said of you.”
“It is not said in earnest. Do you know why they call me the Witch? It is very simple. It is because I can make people sleep—people who are suffering or mad or in great sorrow, and then they rest. That is all my magic.”
“You can put people to sleep? Anybody?” Sister Paul opened her faded eyes very wide. “But that is not natural,” she added in a perplexed tone. “And what is not natural cannot be right.”
“And is all right that is natural?” asked Unorna thoughtfully.
“It is not natural,” repeated the other. “How do you do it? Do you use strange words and herbs and incantations?”
Unorna laughed again, but the nun seemed shocked by her levity and she forced herself to be grave.
“No, indeed!” she answered. “I look into their eyes and tell them to sleep—and they do. Poor Sister Paul! You are behind the age in the dear old convent here. The thing is done in half of the great hospitals of Europe every day, and men and women are cured in that way of diseases that paralyse them in body as well as in mind. Men study to learn how it is done; it is as common to-day, as a means of healing, as the medicines you know by name and taste. It is called hypnotism.”
Again the sister crossed herself.
“I have heard the word, I think,” she said, as though she thought there might be something diabolical in it. “And do you heal the sick in this way by means of this—thing?”