"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 hell, the warders of the gates covered their faces, so frightened were they, not having had time to lock the gates against him, and all hell was harrowed. But Christ had walked on, preaching to those men and women who had been drowned in the Flood, and they had gone up to heaven with him.
"But, Veronica, those who are in hell never come out of it."
"No, they never come out of it; only Christ can do all things, and He descended into hell, not to watch the tortures of the damned—you couldn't think that, Sister Teresa?—but to save those who had died before His coming. Once we had a meditation on a subject given to us by Mother Hilda from one of the Gospels: Three men were seen coming from a tomb, two supporting a man standing between them, the shadow of the Cross came from behind; and the heads of two men touched the sky, but the head of the man they supported passed through the sky, and far beyond it, for the third man was our Lord coming out of hell."
"But, Veronica, you were telling me about the counterparts."
"Well, Sister Teresa, the counterparts are those whom Christ redeemed in those three days, and they come and visit every convent."
"In what guise do they come?" Evelyn asked. And she heard that the arrival of the counterpart was always unexpected, but was preceded by an especially happy state of quiet exaltation.
"Have you never felt that feeling, Sister Teresa? As if one were detached from everything, and ready to take flight."
"Yes, dear, I think I know what you mean. But the counterpart is a sort of marriage, and you know Christ says that there is neither marriage, nor giving in marriage, when the kingdom of God shall come to pass."
"Not giving in marriage," the girl answered, "as is understood in the world, but we shall all meet in heaven; and the meeting of our counterpart on earth is but a faint shadow of the joy we shall experience after death—an indwelling, spirit within spirit, and nothing external. That is how Mother Hilda teaches St. Teresa when we read her in the novitiate."