Immovable in the passage stood the Bishop, until every figure had vanished; every door had closed.

Then he re-entered the Prioress’s cell, and shut the door.

He placed the holy oil on the step, before the shrine of the Madonna, just where old Antony had knelt when she had prayed our blessed Lady to be pleased to sharpen her old wits.

Then he drew forth a tiny flask of rare Italian workmanship, let fall a few drops from it into a spoonful of wine, and firmly poured the liquid between the old lay-sister’s parted lips.

One anxious moment; then he heard her swallow.

At that, the Bishop drew the Prioress’s chair to the side of the couch, and sat down to await events.

In a few moments the stertorous breathing ceased, the open mouth closed.  Mary Antony sighed thrice, as a little child that has wept before sleeping sighs in its sleep.

Then she opened her eyes, and fixed them on the Bishop.

“Reverend Father”—­she began, then chuckled, gleefully.  Her voice had come back, and with it a great activity of brain, though the hands upon the coverlet seemed to belong to someone else, and she hoped they would not rise up and strike her.  Her feet, she could not feel at all; but, seeing that she was most comfortably lying there where she best loved to be, why should she require feet?  Feet are such tired things.  One rests better without them.

“Speak low,” said the Bishop, bending forward.  “Speak low, dear Sister Antony; partly to spare thy strength; and partly because, though I have sent all the White Ladies to their cells, our good Mother Sub-Prioress, in her natural anxiety for thy welfare, may be outside the door, even now.”

Mary Antony chuckled.

“If we could but thrust a nail through into her ear,” she whispered.  Then suddenly serious, she put the question which already her eyes had asked:  “Did I succeed in keeping from them the flight of the Reverend Mother, until you arrived, Reverend Father?”

“Yes, faithful heart, wise beyond all expectation, you did.”

Again Mary Antony chuckled.

“I locked them out,” she said, with a knowing wink, “but I also took them in.  Yea, verily, I took them in!  Scores of times they called me ‘Reverend Mother.’  ’Open the door, I humbly pray you, Reverend Mother,’ pleaded Mother Sub-Prioress at the keyhole. ’Dixi:  Custodiam vias meas,’ chanted Mary Antony, in a beauteous voice! . . .  ’Open, open, Reverend Mother!’ besought a multitude without. ’Quid multiplicati sunt gui tribulant me!’ intoned Mary Antony, within. . . .  ‘Most dear and Reverend Mother,’ crooned Sister Mary Rebecca, at midnight, ’I have something of deepest importance to say’—­’Dixit insipiens,’ was Mary Antony’s appropriate response.  Eh, and Sister Mary Rebecca, thinking none could observe her, had already been round, in the moonlight, and attempted to climb a tree.  All the Reverend Mother’s windows were closely curtained; but old Antony had her eye to a crack, and the sight of Sister Mary Rebecca climbing, made all the other trees to shake with laughter, but is not a sight to be described to the great Lord Bishop. . . .  Nay, then!”—­with a startled cry—­“Why doth this knotted finger rise up and shake itself at me?”