“Alack-a-day!” exclaimed Sister Abigail; “she will have fallen by the way, and perished!  She was too old to face the world or attempt to reach the city.”

“Peace, girl!” commanded the Sub-Prioress.  “Thy comments and thy wailings mend not the matter, and do but incense the Lord Bishop.”

Nothing could have appeared less incensed than the Bishop’s benign countenance.  But he had spoken sternly to Mother Sub-Prioress, therefore she endeavoured to put herself in the right by charging him, at the first opportunity, with unreasonable irritation.

The Bishop reassured Sister Abigail, with a smile; then, pointing toward the closed door:  “Proceed with your recital, Mother Sub-Prioress,” he said.  “You have as yet given me no proof confirming your belief that the Prioress is within the cell.”

“When the absence of Mary Antony became known, my lord,” continued Mother Sub-Prioress, “we felt it right to acquaint the Reverend Mother with the old lay-sister’s flight.  I, myself, knocked upon this door; but the only reply I received was the continuous low chanting of prayers, from within; not so much a clear chanting, as a murmur; and whenever, during the night, nuns listened at the door, or ventured again to tap, the sound of the Reverend Mother’s voice, reciting psalms or prayers, reached them.  As you may remember, my lord, the ground upon the other side of the building is on a lower level than the cloister lawn.  The windows of the Reverend Mother’s cell are therefore raised above the shrubbery and it is not possible to see into the chamber.  But Sister Mary Rebecca, who went round after dark, noted that the Reverend Mother had lighted her tapers and drawn her curtains.  This morning the light is extinguished, the curtains are drawn back, and the casement flung open.  Moreover at the usual hour for rising, the Reverend Mother rang the bell, as is her custom, to waken the nuns—­rang it from within her cell, by means of this rope and pulley.”

“Ah,” said the Bishop.

“Sister Abigail, up already, thereupon ran to the Reverend Mother’s cell; and, the bell still swinging, tapped and asked if she might bring in milk and bread.  Once more the only answer was the low chanting of prayers.  Also, Sister Abigail declares, the voice was so weak and faltering, she scarce knew it for the Reverend Mother’s.  And since then, my lord, there has been silence within the cell, and a sore sense of fear within our hearts; for it is unlike the Reverend Mother to keep her door locked, when the entire community calls and knocks without.”

The Bishop lifted his hand.

“In that speak you truly, Mother Sub-Prioress,” said he.  “Also I must tell you without further delay, that the Prioress is not within her cell.”

“Not within her cell!” exclaimed Mother Sub-Prioress.

“Not within her cell!” shrieked a score of terrified voices, like seagulls calling to each other, before a gathering storm.