“I will send for them, Sir,” answered the Prioress humbly; “but, meanwhile, tell us what we poor religious are to do?  I am turned sixty years of age, and have dwelt in this house for forty of them; none of my sisters are young, and some of them are older than myself.  Whither shall we go?”

“Into the world, Madam, which you will find a fine, large place.  Cease snuffling prayers and from all vulgar superstitions—­by the way, forget not to hand over any reliquaries of value, or any papistical emblems in precious metals that you may possess, including images, of which my secretaries will take account—­and go out into the world.  Marry there if you can find husbands, follow useful trades there.  Do what you will there, and thank the King who frees you from the incumbrance of silly vows and from the circle of a convent’s walls.”

“To give us liberty to starve outside of them.  Sir, do you understand your work?  For hundreds of years we have sat at Blossholme, and during all those generations have prayed to God for the souls of men and ministered to their bodies.  We have done no harm to any creature, and what wealth came to us from the earth or from the benefactions of the pious we have dispensed with a liberal hand, taking nothing for ourselves.  The poor by multitudes have fed at our gates, their sick we have nursed, their children we have taught; often we have gone hungry that they might be full.  Now you drive us forth in our age to perish.  If that is the will of God, so be it, but what must chance to England’s poor?”

“That is England’s business, Madam, and the poor’s.  Meanwhile I have told you that I have no time to waste, since I must away to London to make report concerning this Abbot of yours, a veritable rogue, of whose villainous plots I have discovered many things.  I pray you send a messenger to bid them hurry with the deeds.”

Just then a nun entered bearing a tray, on which were cakes and wine.  Emlyn took it from her, and pouring the wine into cups offered them to the Visitor and his secretaries.

“Good wine,” he said, after he had drunk, “a very generous wine.  You nuns know the best in liquor; be careful, I pray you, to include it in your inventory.  Why, woman, are you not one of those whom that Abbot would have burnt?  Yes, and there is your mistress, Dame Foterell, or Dame Harflete, with whom I desire a word.”

“I am at your service, Sir,” said Cicely.

“Well, Madam, you and your servant have escaped the stake to which, as near as I can judge, you were sentenced upon no evidence at all.  Still, you were condemned by a competent ecclesiastical Court, and under that condemnation you must therefore remain until or unless the King pardons you.  My judgment is, then, that you stay here awaiting his command.”

“But, Sir,” said Cicely, “if the good nuns who have befriended me are to be driven forth, how can I dwell on in their house alone?  Yet you say I must not leave it, and indeed if I could, whither should I go?  My husband’s hall is burnt, my own the Abbot holds.  Moreover, if I bide here, in this way or in that he will have my life.”