Hastening to the kitchens, she had given instructions that the evening meal was not to be served until the Reverend Mother herself should sound the bell.

Then, catching up a meat chopper, as being the most murderous-looking weapon at hand, and the most likely to strike terror into the ghostly heart of Sister Agatha, old Antony had hastened back to the passage.

Creeping up the stairs, hugging the wall, she had reached the top just in time to see, in the dim distance, the two tall white figures confronting one another.

Clinging to her chopper, motionless with horror, she had watched them, until they began, to come toward her, moving in the direction of the Reverend Mother’s cell.  They were still thirty yards away, at the cloister end of the passage.  Old Antony was close to the open door.

Through it she had scurried, unheard, unseen, a terrified black shadow; yet brave withal; for with her went the meat chopper.  Also she might have turned and fled back down the stairs, rather than into the very place whither she knew the Reverend Mother was conducting this tall spectre of the long dead Sister Agatha, grown to most alarming proportions during her fifty years’ entombment!  But being brave and faithful old Antony had sped into the inner cell, and crouched there in a corner; ready to call for help or strike with her chopper, should need arise.

Thus it came to pass that this old weaver of romances had perforce become a listener to a true romance so thrilling, so soul-stirring, that she had had to thrust the end of the wooden handle of the chopper into her mouth, lest she should applaud the noble Knight, cry counsel in his extremities, or invoke blessings on his enterprise.  At each mention of the Ladies Eleanor and Alfrida, she shook her fist, and made signs with her old fingers, as of throttling, in the air.  And when the clerkly messenger, arriving to speak with the Lady Alfrida—­who, Saint Luke be praised, was by that time dying—­found the Knight awaiting him with a noose flung over a strong bough, old Antony had laid down the chopper that she might the better hug herself with silent glee; and when the Knight rode away and left him hanging, she had whispered “Pieman!  Pieman!” then clapped her hands over her mouth, rocking to and fro with merriment.  When the Knight made mention that they called him “Knight of the Bloody Vest,” old Antony had started; then had shaken her finger toward the entrance, as she was used to shake it at the robin, and had opened her wallet to search for crumbs of cheese.  But soon again the story held her and, oblivious of the present, she had been back in the realms of romance.

Not until the Knight ceased speaking and the Reverend Mother’s sad voice fell upon her ear, had old Antony realised the true bearing of the tale.  Thereafter her heart had been torn by grief and terror.  When they kneeled together, before the Madonna, with uplifted faces, Mary Antony had crawled forward and peeped.  She had seen them kneeling—­a noble pair—­had seen the Prioress catch at his hand and clasp it; then, crawling back had fallen prostrate, overwhelmed, a huddled heap upon the floor.