Cecilia tried to explain, but stumbled in her explanation so often that the Reverend Mother interrupted her:
"Cecilia, you are talking nonsense! I have never heard anything like it before!"
"But what I am telling you, Mother, is in the gospel Nicodemus—"
"Gospel of Nicodemus!"
"The harrowing of hell!"
"But what has all this got to do—I cannot understand you."
The story was begun again and again.
"Veronica's counterpart an angel, with luminous tints in his flesh; Angela's a child drowned in Noah's flood! But—" The Prioress checked her words. Had all the novices taken leave of their senses? Had they gone mad?… It looked like it. Anyhow, this kind of thing must be put a stop to and at once. She must get the whole truth out of this stupid girl at her feet, who blubbered out her story, obviously trying to escape punishment by incriminating others.
"So you were praying that an angel might visit you; but what came was quite different?"
"Mother, Mother!" howled Cecilia; "it was a dwarf, but I didn't want him in my bed. I've been punished enough…. Anything more horrible—"