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"The Bishop had, as you indeed know, from the first considered our previous betrothal and your sister's perfidy, sufficient justification for your release from all vows made through that deception. Armed with the Pope's mandate, the Bishop saw no need for a divine manifestation, nor did he, from the first, believe in the vision of this old lay-sister.
On the afternoon of the previous day, so soon as the body of the old lay-sister had been removed from the Prioress's cell, the Bishop had gathered together all those things which Mora specially valued and which she had asked him to secure for her; mostly his gifts to her. The Sacramentaries, from which she so often made copies and translations, now lay upon his table.
So only Eleanor murmured, 'The holy Margaret no saint' and Jean, 'Weel, I had liefer take my chance. 'All have not a vocation, piously said the Mother. 'Taste this Rose Dalmoyne, Madame; our lay-sister Mold is famed for making it.
In the afternoon of that day, Mary Antony awaited, in the cloisters, the return of the White Ladies from Vespers. Twenty only, had gone; and, fearful lest she should make mistake with the unusual number, the old lay-sister spent the time of waiting in counting the twenty peas afresh, passing them back and forth from one hand to the other. Mother Sub-Prioress was still unable to leave her bed.
The nun has changed but little with the passing of the years, but those who love her best note with anxious eyes the slight stoop of the shoulders and feebleness of gait. The visitor glances idly at a lay-sister who is busily engaged sweeping the long flight of stone steps leading from the portico to the driveway below.
The marquis said that he would make a little bank for me, and feeling obliged to accept I soon lost a hundred louis. I went to my room to write some letters, and at twilight I set out to see my nun. "What news have you?" "The lay-sister is dead, and she is to be buried tomorrow. To-morrow is the day we were to have returned to the convent. This is the letter I am sending to the abbess.
But as if love had favoured my vows, when I was within a hundred paces of the cottage I saw the peasant woman coming out to meet me. "Sir," said she, accosting me, "the young nun begs you to return this evening at nine o'clock; the lay-sister will be asleep then, and she will be able to speak freely to you." There could be no more doubt. My heart leapt with joy.
Then from the Convent garden trilled softly the first notes, poignant but passing sweet, of the robin's song. The morning after the return from Rome of the Bishop's messenger, the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, chanced to be crossing the Convent courtyard, when there came a loud knocking on the outer gates.
The old lay-sister seized her wallet and pulled out the bag of peas. Below, the heavy door swung back upon its hinges. Mary Antony dropped upon her knees to the right of the steps, her hands hidden beneath her scapulary, her eyes bent in lowly reverence upon the sunlit flagstones, her lips mumbling chance sentences from the Psalter.
But their awe of the Lord Bishop, and their genuine anxiety for the old lay-sister, kept them silent. The Bishop stroked his chin, keeping the corners of his mouth firmly in place by means of his thumb and finger. Old Antony was delectably funny when she said these things herself; but she was delectably funnier, when her remarks were repeated by Mother Sub-Prioress.
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