“Twenty White Ladies went,” whispered the old lay-sister.  “I counted them.  Twenty White Ladies went; but——­”

“Well?”

“Twenty-one returned,” chattered Mary Antony, and hid her face in the Reverend Mother’s robe.

Two flashes, with their accompanying peals of thunder passed, before the Prioress moved or spoke.  Then raising Mary Antony she placed her in a chair, disengaged her robe from the shaking hands, passed out into the cell passage, and herself sounded the call to silence and prayer.

Returning to her cell she shut the door, poured out a cordial and put it to the trembling lips of Mary Antony.  Then taking a seat just opposite, she looked with calm eyes at the lay-sister.

“What means this story?” said the Prioress.

“Reverend Mother, twenty holy Ladies went——­”

“I know.  And twenty returned.”

“Aye,” said the old woman more firmly, nettled out of her speechlessness; “twenty returned; and twenty peas I dropped from hand to hand.  Then—­when no pea remained—­yet another White Lady glided by; and with her went an icy wind, and around her came the blackness of the storm.

“Down the steps I fled, locked the door, and took the key.  How I mounted again, I know not.  As I drew level with the cloisters, I saw that twenty-first White Lady, for whom—­Saint Peter knows—­I held no pea, passing from the cloisters into the cell passage.  As I hastened on, fain to see whither she went, a blinding flash, like an evil twisting snake, shot betwixt her and me.  When I could see again, she was gone.  I fled to the Reverend Mother, and ran in on the roar of the thunder.”

“Saw you her face, Mary Antony?”

“Nay, Reverend Mother.  But, of late, the holy Ladies mostly walk by with their faces shrouded.”

“I know.  Now, see here, dear Antony.  Two peas dropped together, the while you counted one.”

“Nay, Reverend Mother.  Twenty peas dropped one by one; also I counted twenty White Ladies.  And, after I had counted twenty, yet another passed.”

“But how could that be?” objected the Prioress.  “If twenty went, but twenty could return.  Who should be the twenty-first?”

Then old Mary Antony leaned forward, crossing herself.

“Sister Agatha,” she whispered, tremulously.  “Poor Sister Agatha returned to us again.”

But, even as she said it, swift came a name to the mind of the Prioress, answering her own question, and filling her with consternation and a great anger.  “Wilfred!  Wilfred, are you come to save me?” foolish little Seraphine had said.  Was such sacrilege possible?  Could one from the outside world have dared to intrude into their holy Sanctuary?

Yet old Antony’s tale carried conviction.  Her abject fear was now explained.

That the Dead should come again, and walk and move among the haunts of men, seeking out the surroundings they have loved and left, seems always to hold terror for the untutored mind, which knows not that the Dead are more alive than the living; and that there is no death, saving the death of sin.