Don Manuel de Lara: With us is neither sin nor death. You yourself said that during IT sin vanished.
Sister Pilar: Yes ... so it seemed ... (almost inaudibly) ’twas what I feel, only ten times multiplied, when I eat Christ in the Eucharist.
Don Manuel de Lara: Hush, beloved, hush! You are speaking wildly.
Sister Pilar: Oh! what did I say? Yes, they were wild words.
(Pause.)
Sister Pilar: Do you know, we are in the octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi? I seem to have fallen from the wheel of the Calendar to which I have been tied all my life ... saints, apostles, virgins, martyrs, rolled round, rolled round, year after year ... like the Kings and Popes and beggars on the Wheel of Fortune in my mother’s book of Hours. Yes, beloved, we have fallen off the wheel and are lying stunned in its shadow among the nettles and deadly night-shade; but above us, creaking, creaking, the old wheel turns. It may be we are dead ... are we dead, beloved?
Through the trees Sister Assumcion is heard shouting, “Sister Pilar! Sister Pilar!” Sister Pilar starts violently and once more springs to her feet. Sister Assumcion appears running towards them.
Sister Assumcion (breathlessly): Quick! Quick! Not a moment ... they’ll be here! I cannot ... quick! (She presses her hand to her side in great agitation).
Don Manuel de Lara: What is all this? Speak, lady.
Sister Assumcion: Trotaconventos ... Don Jaime ... the alguaciles.