“What said the Reverend Mother when you reported on a twenty-first White Lady?” asked the Bishop.

“Reverend Mother bid me begone, while she herself dealt with the wraith of Sister Agatha.”

“And why did you not go?” asked the Bishop, quietly.

Completely taken aback, Mary Antony’s ready tongue failed her.  She stood stock still and stared at the Bishop.  Her gums began to rattle and she clapped her knuckles against them, horror and dismay in her eyes.

The Bishop looked searchingly into the frightened old face, and there read all he wanted to know.  Then he smiled; and, taking her gently by the arm, paced on between the yew hedges.

“Sister Antony,” he said, and the low tones of his voice fell like quiet music upon old Antony’s perturbed spirit; “you and I, dear Sister Antony, love the Reverend Mother so truly and so faithfully, that there is nothing we would not do, to save her a moment’s pain. We know how noble and how good she is; and that she will always decide aright, and follow in the footsteps of our blessed Lady and all the holy saints.  But others there are, who do not love her as we love her, or know her as we know her; and they might judge her wrongly.  Therefore we must tell to none, that which we know—­how the Reverend Mother, alone, dealt with that visitor, who was not the wraith of Sister Agatha.”

Mary Antony peeped up at the Bishop.  A light of great joy was on her face.  Her eyes had lost their look of terror, and began to twinkle cunningly.

“I know naught,” she said.  “I saw naught; I heard naught.”

The Bishop smiled.

“How many peas were left in your wallet, Sister Antony ?”

“Five,” chuckled Mary Antony.

“Why did you shew six to the Reverend Mother?”

“To set her mind at rest,” whispered the old lay-sister.

“To cause her to think that you had heard naught, seen naught, and knew naught?”

Mary Antony nodded, chuckling again.

“Faithful old heart!” said the Bishop.  “What gave thee this thought?”

“Our blessed Lady, in answer to her petition, sharpened the wits of old Antony.”

The Bishop sighed.  “May our blessed Lady keep them sharp,” he murmured, half aloud.

“Amen,” said Mary Antony with fervour.

CHAPTER XXVI

LOVE NEVER FAILETH

The Bishop awaited the Prioress on that stone seat under the beech, from which the robin had carried off the pea.

He saw her coming through the sunlit cloisters.

As she moved down the steps, and came swiftly toward him, he was conscious at once of an indefinable change in her.

Had that ride upon Icon set her free from trammels in which she had been hitherto immeshed?

As she reached him, he took both her hands, so that she should not kneel.