"Gosh, it's quiet in here!" Ruby said in an awed whisper. She looked up at a heavy wooden cross encircled by a wreath of rusty barbed wire that was decorated with orange-red pyracanthus berries.

"Of course it's quiet," Maggie said in a low voice. "It's a cloister." She lifted her eyes to the cross.

"Do I have to whisper?" Ruby whispered to me.

Maggie turned, smiling. "No," she said. "People talk at mealtimes."

Ruby and I followed Maggie down the silent hall, past a large laundry room and kitchen on one side and a community room on the other. We turned a corner.

"That's the main office," Maggie said, pointing to a closed door. "Someone is on duty there during business hours. That's where the phone is located, if you need it."

The refectory-already crowded with sisters-was at the end of the hall, a large, square, cheerful room, brightly lit, with undraped floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto a small, shady garden. It was furnished with wooden tables and chairs arranged in orderly rows. At one end stood another large table, on which the food-soup, bread, sandwich fillings, salad, and fruit-was laid out on a bright yellow cloth, buffet style. Although the women were older than most students, the scene reminded me of a college dining hall.

But as I glanced around, I saw that there seemed to be an invisible line drawn down the middle of the room. On one side, the tables were filled with women wearing jeans, slacks, and skirts, talking in low voices, laughing and smiling, their heads close together. The women on the other side-most of them older-wore navy skirts, white blouses, and the same short blue veil and white wimple Sister Olivia had worn. They ate with their eyes cast down, observing what Maggie called ' 'modesty of the eyes,'' and only a few were talking. If I'd needed a visual demonstration of the gulf between St. T's and St. Agatha's, diis was it.

We filled our plates, then went in search of Dominica. We found her at a table with Sister Miriam, a thin-faced woman with hair the color of autumn oak leaves and an intense, darting glance. As I sat down, I saw a look pass

between Maggie and Dominica. I thought I understood that look now, and the softening at the comers of Maggie's mouth when Dominica returned her smile. Love is love, wherever you find it. The trouble is that some kinds of love are hard to fit into our lives. The glance wasn't missed by Sister Miriam, either, who turned away, her face unreadable.

We were still getting settled when we were joined by Sister Rachel, who was short, plump, and all in a dither. Her nose and eyes were red and she seemed distraught, not so much over Perpetua's death, but over the fact that her body had been taken away.

"We have a very special ritual when a sister dies," she explained to Ruby and me. "Our infirmarian-that's Sister Rowena-washes our dead sister and dresses her. Then we carry her to the chapel and light the paschal candle and take turns reciting the Psalms. It's all very beautiful, very reassuring. To have poor Perpetua hauled off like a dead cow…" She shook her head, despairing. "It happened the same way with Mother Hilaria. So horrible! Where will all this end?"

"With a new abbess, unfortunately." The angularity of Miriam's face was matched by her thin voice. "Unless a miracle happens, we'll be voting before compline tomorrow."

"We should have prayed harder for Perpetua," Dominica muttered.

I seconded that. Maybe Perpetua couldn't have told me anything more than I already knew about the letter she'd received. On the other hand…

"There won't be an election tomorrow," Maggie said, buttering her roll.

"Oh, really?" Miriam asked dryly. "With Perpetua dead, the score is nineteen to twenty. Just in time, too. Olivia is getting tired of holding her breath."

Who would want to kill poor old Sister Perpetua? Miriam had just given me an answer to Maggie's rhetorical

question. But that was ridiculous. Nuns only killed other nuns in murder mysteries.

"I'm afraid Olivia will have to hold her breath a little longer," Maggie said. "There are still twenty votes for Ga-briella." Everybody was looking at her, but she didn't seem to notice. "I asked Mother Winifred if I could come back to St. T's, and she said yes. It's up to the Council of Sisters, of course, and Reverend Mother General has to agree, but Mother says there won't be a problem."

Miriam didn't look overjoyed. "Reverend Mother will jump on the idea like a duck on a Junebug," she said, "even if it does put Olivia on hold a while longer. The order needs every vocation it can get."

Ignoring Miriam, Dominica clasped her hands, her round face shining. "Oh, Margaret Mary, I'm so glad! I've missed you so much. We've all missed you!"

Ruby was gaping. "But what about your restaurant? You've put two years of work into it, Maggie, You can't just turn your back and walk away!"

"Why not?" Maggie's face was sober but her blue eyes were twinkling. "It's just a restaurant. No big deal." She patted Ruby's hand. "This is right for me, Ruby. I belong here."

Ruby subsided, muttering. She enjoys an occasional retreat, but she also loves her fun. She would find life in a monastery unutterably boring.

I searched Maggie's face for a hint to how she was feeling, but all I could see was her normal serene calm. Her announcement wasn't totally unexpected, of course. She'd been telegraphing it all day. I hoped she was coming back for the right reasons, but I had to wonder.

"I don't suppose you're doing this to keep Olivia from being elected," Miriam remarked. She was watching Maggie obliquely, and I wondered how much she knew about the relationship between Maggie and Dominica. She herself was linked with Dominica, at least in the poison-pen

writer's imagination. I studied her more closely. Was there a hint of jealousy in her look?

I wasn't surprised when Maggie answered Miriam's question with a firm, clear "Of course not." If Maggie had another motive, she probably wouldn't share it-and certainly not in response to such an obvious challenge.

Sister Rachel cast innocent eyes around the table. ' 'Why in the world should anyone want to keep Olivia from being elected? She isn't my choice, but if she's elected, it will be God's will."

"Really, Rachel," Dominica said impatiently. "You know better than that. God doesn't will everything that happens. He wasn't responsible for the fire in the chapel, for instance. Some bad person did that."

Rachel was half-frowning. "But the person who set the fires… couldn't she-if it is a she, I mean-couldn't that person be carrying out God's will? There is a larger purpose in all things, even if we can't always see it." She paused, took a deep breath, and then plunged deeper into the muddy theological waters. "The person who is setting the fires could be an agent of God. Who are we to question? Who are we to know?'

Miriam hadn't been paying any attention to Rachel. She leaned across the table toward Maggie. ' 'If you're coming back to keep Olivia from taking over, it won't do a dime's bit of good, Margaret Mary. You may stall her for a while, but sooner or later she and Reverend Mother will get what they want. Unless we do something about it, St. T's is doomed."

The last melodramatic sentence rang into the dead silence that had fallen suddenly over the room. Miriam raised her head and looked around, her cheeks reddening. Mother Winifred was standing at a table near the front of the room. She was so short that I had to move my chair to be able to see her.

"I am sure you have all heard that Sister Perpetua died this afternoon," she said with dignity. "Father Steven will

celebrate a Requiem Mass later in the week. In the meantime, following our tradition, we will say prayers in the chapel for Sister Perpetua's soul." She didn't mention the fact that Sister Perpetua's body would be somewhere else.