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The Penance begins with two postulants hurrying through the cloisters of a little convent, for they are late to prayers. Sister Angelica, also late, does her own penance by saying a prayer before entering the church. Then the Monitor of the order of nuns emerges and delivers penances to several young nuns and postulates for minor infractions of the rules.
 

The Recreation is that brief period after prayers when the sisters gather in the garden to admire the flowers. They also compare wishes. Sister Angelica, it turns out, seems to have none. She is a somewhat mysterious figure to the others. All they know of her is that she has been in the convent for seven years and it is rumored that she is a princess who has been renounced by her family for some crime or other.
 

The Return from the Quest brings in two members of the order who carry a load of supplies on a small donkey. They also report that a handsome carriage is outside the convent. A bell announcing a visitor is rung, and the Abbess summons Sister Angelica. Her aunt, the Princess, is there to visit her.
 

The Princess, who gives her name to the next section, is an elderly lady of great dignity and severity, who carries a stick. Greatly agitated, Sister Angelica kisses her hand and seems to implore forgiveness. But the Princess has come for only one thing. It seems that Angelica’s sister is about to be married, and a signature on a document is necessary so that their dead parents’ fortune may be divided. As the parents had died twenty years earlier and as she has now no use for money, Angelica readily consents and asks about something that interests her far more: what has happened to her little illegitimate son, whose birth is the reason that she was hidden away in a convent. When the Princess tells Angelica that the child died two years before, she breaks down completely. For a moment the Princess is almost moved by these tears to say something kindly. But she regains her control, calls for pen and ink, obtains the necessary signature, and hobbles off in aristocratic silence.
 

The Grace. Alone in the garden, with night descending, Angelica decides to use hei knowledge of herbs, gained at the convent, to take her own life. She sings a tender farewell to her sister nuns, prepares a poisonous potion, and swiftly drinks it. Only then does she realize that suicide is a terrible sin, and that she may never see her son in heaven after all. Frantically she prays to Mary for forgiveness.
 

The Miracle occurs in answer to her prayers. The little church becomes illumined with an unearthly light, and the Madonna herself appears to Sister Angdica, leading a little blond boy by the hand. Angdica dies in peace, as an invisible choir of angels promises her salvation.