“The Prioress left the Convent yesterday afternoon,” said the Bishop, “with my knowledge and approval; travelling at once, with a sufficient escort, to a place some distance from Worcester, where I also spent the night.  I have come to bring you a message from His Holiness the Pope, sent to me direct from Rome. . . .  The Holy Father bids me say that your Prioress has been moved on by me, with his full knowledge and approval, to a place where she is required for higher service.  Perhaps I may also tell you,” added the Bishop, looking with kindly sympathy upon all the blankly disconcerted faces, “that this morning I myself performed a solemn rite, for which I held the Pope’s especial mandate, setting apart your late Prioress for this higher service.  She grieved that it was not possible to bid you farewell.  She sends you loving greetings, her thanks for loyalty and obedience, and prays that the blessing of the Lord may ever be with you.”

The Bishop ceased speaking.

At first there was an amazed silence.

Then the unexpected happened.  Mother Sub-Prioress, without any warning, broke into passionate weeping.

Never before had Mother Sub-Prioress been known to weep.  The sight petrified the Convent.  Yet somehow all knew that she wept because, in the hard old nut which did duty for her heart, there was a kernel of deep love for their noble Prioress.

The other nuns wept, because Mother Sub-Prioress wept.

The sobbing became embarrassing in its completeness.  Wheresoever the
Bishop looked he was confronted by a weeping nun.

Suddenly Mother Sub-Prioress dried her eyes, holding herself once more in control.  It had just occurred to her that the Bishop’s word could not be taken against the evidence of all their senses!  On that very morning, at five o’clock the Convent call to rise had been rung from within the Prioress’s cell!

So Mother Sub-Prioress dried her eyes, punished her nose for sharing in the general breakdown, and looking with belligerent eye at the Bishop, said:  “If the Reverend Mother be not within her cell, perhaps it will please you, my lord, to inform the Convent who is within it!”

“That point,” said the Bishop, “can speedily be settled.”

He took from his girdle the Prioress’s master-key, handed over to him before he left Warwick.

Fitting it into the lock, he opened the door of the cell, and entered, followed by the Sub-Prioress and a crowd of palpitating, eager nuns.

A few paces from the door the Bishop paused, signing to Mother Sub-Prioress to come forward, but restraining, with uplifted hand, those who pressed in behind her.

The chamber was very still.

The chair of the Prioress was empty.

But, before the shrine of the Madonna, there lay, stretched upon the floor, the unconscious form of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony.