Sister Pilar: Strange! Has my prayer been answered? And by whom?
Don Manuel de Lara: What prayer, beloved?
Sister Pilar: That night you were the other side of the wall, I prayed that I might behold the woof without the warp of sin, a still, quiet, awful world, and all the winds asleep. (Very low.) IT was like that. (Springing to her feet.) Christ Jesus! Blessed Virgin! Guardian angel, where was your sword? I, a nun, a bride of Christ, I have been ravished. I am fallen lower than the lowest woman of the town, I have forfeited my immortal soul. (Sobbing, she sinks down again beside Don Manuel, and lays her head on his shoulder.) Beloved! Why have you brought me to this? Why, my beloved?
Don Manuel de Lara (caressing her): Hush, little love, hush! Your body is small and thin ... hush!
Sister Pilar: But how came it to fall out thus? Why?
Don Manuel de Lara: Because there was something stronger than the angels, than all the hosts of the dead.
Sister Pilar: What?
Don Manuel de Lara: I cannot say ... something ... I feel it—yet, where are these words? They have suddenly come to me: amor morte fortior—against love the dead whose aid you, and I, too, invoked, cannot prevail.
Sister Pilar (shuddering): Yet the dead kept Sister Assumcion from her trovar.