Seating herself, she laid her left hand lightly upon the mane of one of the carved lions which formed, on either side, the arms of the chair; but her right hand still gripped unseen the ivory hilt; while leaning slightly forward, with feet firmly planted, she was ready at any moment to spring erect.

“I know you for a man,” she said.

The thunder rumbled far away in the distance.

The rain still splashed against the casement, but the storm had spent itself; the sky was brightening.  A pale slant of sunshine broke through the parting clouds and, entering the casement, gleamed on the jewelled cross at the breast of the Prioress, and kindled into peculiar radiance the searching light of her clear eyes.

“I know you for a man,” she said again.  “You stand there, revealed; and surely you stand there, shamed.  By plotting and planning, by assuming our dress, you have succeeded in forcing your undesired presence into this sacred cloister, where dwells a little company of women who have left the world, never to return to it again; who have given up much in order to devote themselves to a life of continual worship and adoration, gaining thereby a power in intercession which brings down blessing upon those who still fight life’s battles in the world without.

“But it has meant the breaking of many a tender tie.  There are fathers and brothers dear to them, whom the nuns would love to see again; but they cannot do so, save, on rare occasions, in the guest-room at the gate; and then, with the grille between.

“Saving Bishop or Priest, no foot of man may tread our cloisters; no voice of man may be heard in these cells.

“Yet—­by trick and subterfuge—­you have intruded.  Methinks I scarce should let you leave this place alive, to boast what you have done.”

The Prioress paused.

The figure stood, with folded arms, immovable, leaning against the wall.  There was a quality in this motionless silence such as the Prioress had not connected with her idea of Mary Seraphine’s “Cousin Wilfred.”

This was not a man to threaten.  Her threat came back to her, as if she had flung it against a stone wall.  She tried another line of reasoning.

“I know you, Sir Wilfred,” she said.  “And I know why you are here.  You have come to tempt away, or mayhap, if possible, to force away one of our number who but lately took her final vows.  There was a time, not long ago, when you might have thwarted her desire to seek and find the best and highest.  But now you come too late.  No bride of Heaven turns from her high estate.  Her choice is made.  She will abide by it; and so, Sir Knight, must you.”

The rain had ceased.  The storm was over.  Sunshine flooded the cell.

Once more the Prioress spoke, and her voice was gentle.

“I know the disappointment to you must be grievous.  You took great risks; you adventured much.  How long you have plotted this intrusion, I know not.  You have been thwarted in your evil purpose by the faithfulness of one old woman, our aged lay-sister, Mary Antony, who never fails to count the White Ladies as they go and as they return, and who reported at once to me that one more had returned than went.