“Sister,” said Sister Arnette, speaking with her old woman’s air of perpetual disapproval, “I’m glad to see that you are offering our help to this girl and her mother. But it is also true that this is something you should have asked me about.”

“I’m very sorry,” Lacey said. “It was an emergency. It will only be until Monday.”

Sister Arnette looked appraisingly at Lacey, then down at Amy, who was standing with her back pressed to the pleats of Lacey’s skirt. While she did this, Sister Arnette removed her gloves, one finger at a time. Cold air from outside still swirled in the close space of the hallway.

“This is a convent, not an orphanage. This isn’t a place for children.”

“I understand, Sister. And I am very sorry. It simply couldn’t be helped.”

Another moment passed. Dear Lord, Lacey thought, help me to like this person more than I do, Sister Arnette, who is imperious and thinks much of herself, but is Your servant, as I am.

“All right,” Sister Arnette said at last, and sighed irritably. “Until Monday. She can use the spare room.”

It was then that Sister Lacey wondered why: why she had lied, and why the lie had come so easily, as if it weren’t a lie in the larger sense of things-true and things-untrue. Her story was also full of holes. What would happen if the police returned, or telephoned, and Sister Arnette discovered what she’d done? What would happen Monday, when she had to call the county? And yet she felt no fear about these matters. The girl was a mystery, sent to them by God—and not even to them, but to her. To Lacey. It was her job to figure out what the answer to this mystery was, and by lying to Sister Arnette—not necessarily a lie, she told herself; who was to say the mother hadn’t gone to visit a sick relative after all?—she had given herself the time required to unravel it. So perhaps that was why the lie had come so easily; the Holy Spirit had spoken through her, inspired her with the flame of a different, deeper sort of truth, and what it had said was that the girl was in trouble and needed Lacey to help her.