Monica Joan, once Elspeth Kerridge, the third youngest of seven children, had been a troublemaker in her youth, and remained alert for opportunities in her later years. Julienne knew this, and did her best to head off the elderly nun's more obvious tactics. It was not unusual in nuns of Monica Joan's age and class. Intelligent, spirited women, their capabilities thwarted by society and family, some turned to the veil to set them free from social convention. But their old ways remained, of finding mischief and small rebellions where they could.

Julienne didn't want to think that Monica Joan had deliberately exposed Bernadette's distress, especially with secular company in the room. But she couldn't put it past her. Bernadette had been unusually terse with her, and Monica Joan likely sought a way to prod her for it as much as to appear sympathetic. And then she had wandered off into poetry, as she was wont to do when she was about to be scolded. Don't blame me, I'm just a doddery old nun with a dicky heart and a faulty memory.

But something was very wrong, that much was clear. Bernadette had come seeking counsel earlier, and they had been interrupted by Monica Joan's medical emergency. And had Bernadette really been spending so much time in personal prayer? She knew of a few occasions, but that was not unusual. The sisters were a community, but each went through trials the others knew not, as each grappled alone with her faith and with God. These were private ordeals, to be discussed with a superior. Julienne was not a Mother within the order, but Sister-in-Charge of Nonnatus, so it fell to her to invite the others to speak, but not to minister to their faith. For that, she must advise them to speak with the Mother Superior or the local ministry.

She'd thought she should leave Bernadette alone, wait for her to ask for counsel if she needed. As the youngest in age and in the religious life, she'd been their little sister for ten years, and in some ways they'd protected her. But she was maturing in body and in the faith, and she was not a young woman anymore. She'd have to learn to wrestle her own angels in the desert.

But Monica Joan had caught the thread of what troubled their sister, and pulled hard. Viciously hard.

What had she quoted this time?

But now no face divine contentment wears,
'Tis all blank sadness, or continual tears.

A benign observation of their little sister's emotional state, yes, but there were always layers to Monica Joan's utterances. In this case, she'd picked Pope. A cheeky intellectual, much like Monica Joan herself. Letters from Eloise to Abelard.

Oh, dear. The old tale of a passionate but doomed love affair between a bright young woman and her older tutor, and her lifelong struggle between her love and her religious vows.

What did Monica Joan know, or suspect, that Bernadette was desperately trying to pray away?

She found Bernadette in the chapel, where she'd slipped away from Monica Joan's taunting – for taunting it had been. The younger nun was standing in front of the great central stained glass depicting St. Luke and St. Mark, displaying the books of their learning.

"Sister, I owe you an apology," she said, stepping up as softly as if Bernadette was a cat not yet sure of its home. "You asked to speak to me, and I was distracted. And now Sister Monica Joan has spoken out of turn."

Bernadette turned up her lovely face, overlined now with tiredness, and red-rimmed eyes that Julienne had missed seeing. "I didn't want anyone to notice," Bernadette admitted. "I didn't want to impose myself. To make any sort of demand on the community." Which was undoubtedly true. Bernadette did not trouble anyone with small concerns or aches. Julienne had had cause to remind her that she needed to seek proper treatment if she was ill, and that taking medicine was not stealing from their patients. She wondered at times whether the forthright Scotswoman had also fallen into the pattern of a youngest child in the family, determined to get up from every skinned knee without a cry.

"It isn't an imposition, to ask for help," she reminded her. She reached out, and with a hand on her shoulder, guided her to the row of chairs. How little they touched one another, even in solace. Contact was frowned upon in the religious life, not as a sensual risk but because it reinforced personal friendships that ought to be focussed on God. "And you did ask for help. And I have come to offer what I can."

They sat. Julienne waited. Bernadette clearly wanted to speak – there was no sign of prevarication or withdrawal - but did not know how. At length, she began, quietly.

"The truth is that I hardly know what ails me," she said. "I almost wish I was physically ill. I want to be able to say, this is where it hurts . Because if I could list my symptoms, you could offer me a cure. But you can't. Because I can't."

"But we have made a start, Sister Bernadette," she reminded her. Admitting to pain and acknowledging it was the critical turn towards healing. She reached out to take Bernadette's hands, and found them cold and trembling.

Oh, my dear, you need a hug and a weep, she thought.

And indeed it wasn't a moment before the younger woman crumpled into sobbing, with a sort of despair that pulled on Julienne's heart. This was serious indeed. Was it an affair of the heart, as Monica Joan hinted? Or a hard grappling with faith, or of choices made, that each sister must face? Some external cause? The Mother House had already bid a sad farewell to one sister earlier this year, when the pressure from her aging family to come home and care for them became too much.

It wasn't difficult to guess the who, if love was part of it. How overwhelming it must be. For both of them. How good and solid and even holy such a love might be, but for Bernadette's solemnly professed vows and her equally clear love of God.

She could never urge Bernadette to make one decision over another, but oh, how could she ever do without her? She wasn't only an integral part of their small community and an indefatigable worker, but a bright light and the purest voice among them. Really a model nun, in so many ways. She couldn't, she musn't think of leaving them.

Julienne knew she had let herself think of her as her own little sister for too long, but it was true.

All Julienne could do was pray for her. Pray for them both. Pray for them all. Including ruddy Elspeth.