Mary Antony, half turning as she talked, peered into the open bag in search of Sister Teresa.

Then, quick as thought, the unexpected happened.

Three rapid hops, a jerky bend of the red breast, a flash of wings——­

The robin had flown off with the white pea!  The shrivelled and the speckled alone remained upon the seat.

Uttering a cry of horror and dismay, the old lay-sister fell upon her knees, lifting despairing hands to trees and sky.

Down by the lower wall, in earnest meditation, the Prioress moved back and forth, on the Cypress Walk.

Mary Antony’s shriek of dismay, faint but unmistakable, reached her ears.  Turning, she passed noiselessly up the green sward, on the further side of the yew hedge; but paused, in surprise, as she drew level with the beech; for the old lay-sister’s voice penetrated the hedge, and the first words she overheard seemed to the Prioress wholly incomprehensible.

“Ah, thou Knight of the Bloody Vest!” moaned Mary Antony.  “Heaven send thy wicked perfidy may fall on thine own pate!  Intruding thyself into our most private places; begging food, which could not be refused; wheedling old Mary Antony into letting thee have a peep at the holy Ladies—­thou bold, bad man!—­and then carrying off the Reverend Mother, Herself!  Ha!  Hadst thou but caught away Mother Sub-Prioress, she would have reformed thy home, whipped thy children, and mended thine own vile manners, thou graceless churl!  Or hadst thou taken Sister Mary Rebecca, she would have brought the place about thine ears, telling thy wife fine tales of thine unfaithfulness; whispering that Mary Antony is younger and fairer than she.  But, nay, forsooth!  Neither of these will do!  Thou must needs snatch away the Reverend Mother, Herself!  Oh, sacrilegious fiend!  Stand not there mocking me!  Where is the Reverend Mother?”

“Why, here am I, dear Antony,” said the Prioress, in soothing tones, coming quickly from behind the hedge.

One glance revealed, to her relief, that the lay-sister was alone.  Tears ran down the furrows of her worn old face.  She knelt upon the grass; beside her a large nosegay of flowering weeds; upon the seat, peas strewn from out a much-used, linen bag.  Above her on a bough, a robin perched, bending to look, with roguish eye, at the scattered peas.

To the Prioress it seemed that indeed the old lay-sister must have taken leave of her senses.

Stooping, she tried to raise her; but Mary Antony, flinging herself forward, clasped and kissed the Reverend Mother’s feet, in an abandonment of penitence and grief.

“Nay, rise, dear Antony,” said the Prioress, firmly.  “Rise!  I command it.  The day is warm.  Thou hast been dreaming.  No bold, bad man has forced his way within these walls.  No ‘Knight of the Bloody Vest’ is here.  Rise up and look.  We are alone.”

But Mary Antony, still on her knees, half raised herself, and, pointing to the bough above, quavered, amid her sobs:  “The bold, bad man is there!”