As the procession was re-forming to leave the grave, Sister Mary Seraphine felt that the moment had now arrived, old Antony being disposed of, when she might suitably become the centre of attention, and be carried, on the return journey.  She therefore fell prone upon the ground, in a fainting fit.

The Bishop, his chaplain, the priests and acolytes, paused uncertain what to do.

Sister Teresa, and other nuns, would have hastened to raise her, but the command of Mother Sub-Prioress rang sharp and clear.

“Let her lie!  If she choose to remain with the Dead, it is but small loss to the Living.”

And with hands devoutly crossed upon her breast, ferret face peering to right and left from out the curtain of her veil, Mother Sub-Prioress moved forward at the head of the nuns.

The Bishop’s procession, which had wavered, continued to lead the way; solemn chanting began; and, as the Bishop turned into the Cypress Walk he saw the flying figure of Mary Seraphine running among the trees in the orchard, trying to catch up, and to take her place again, unnoticed, among the rest.

The Bishop smiled, remembering his many talks with the Prioress concerning Seraphine, and the Knight’s dismay when he feared they were foisting the wayward nun upon him.

Then he sighed as he realised that the control of the Convent had now passed into the able hands of Mother Sub-Prioress; and that, in these unusual circumstances, the task of selecting and appointing a new Prioress, fell to him.

Perhaps his conversations on this subject, first with the Prior, and later on with Mother Sub-Prioress, partly accounted for his extreme fatigue, now that he found himself at last alone in his library.

But the reward of those “whose strength is to sit still,” had come to the Bishop.

Soon after he fixed his eyes upon the Gregorian and Gelasian Sacramentaries, his eyelids gently began to droop.  Sleep was already upon him when he decided to let the Palace, the City, yea, even the Cathedral go, if he might but keep the Prioress.  And as he walked with Mora up the golden stair, his mind was at rest; his weary body slept.

A very few minutes of sleep sufficed the Bishop.

He awoke as suddenly as he had fallen asleep; and, as he awoke, he seemed to hear himself say:  “Nay, Hugh.  None save the old lay-sister, Mary Antony.”

He sat up, wondering what this sentence could mean; also when and where it had been spoken.

As he wondered, his eye fell upon the white stone which he had flung into the Severn, and which the Knight, diving from the parapet, had retrieved from the river bed.  The stone seemed in some way connected with this chance sentence which had repeated itself in his brain.

The Bishop rose, walked over to his deed chest, took the white stone in his hand and stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon it, wrapped in thought.  Then he passed out on to the lawn, and paced slowly to and fro between the archway leading from the courtyard, to the parapet overlooking the river.