The porteress, at the gate, jumped well-nigh out of her skin when, turning, she found Mary Antony at her elbow.

"Beshrew me, Sister Antony!" she exclaimed. "Wherefore"----

"Whist!" said Mary Antony. "Speak not so loud. Now listen, Mary Mark.

Saw you the great Lord Bishop yesterday, a-walking with Mary Antony?

Ha, ha! Yea, verily! 'Worthy Mother,' his lordship called me.

'Worthy Mother,' with his hand upon his heart. And into the gardens he walked with Mary Antony. Wherefore, you ask? Wherefore should the great Lord Bishop walk in the Convent garden with an old lay-sister, who ceased to be a comely wench more than half a century ago? Because, Sister Mark, if you needs must know, the Lord Bishop is full of anxious fears for the Reverend Mother, and knoweth that Mary Antony, old though she be, is able to tend and watch over her. The Lord Bishop and the Worthy Mother both fear that the Reverend Mother fasts too often, and spends too many hours in vigil. The Reverend Father has therefore deputed the Worthy Mother to watch in this matter, and to let him know at once if the Reverend Mother imperils her health again, by too lengthy a fast or vigil. And, lo! this very day, the Reverend Mother purposes not coming to the evening meal, and intends spending the whole night in prayer and vigil, before our Lady's shrine. Therefore the Worthy Mother--I, myself--must start at once to fetch the great Lord Bishop; and you, Sister Mary Mark, must open the gate and let me be gone."

The porteress gazed, round-eyed and amazed.

"Nay, Sister Mary Antony, that can I not, without an order from the Reverend Mother herself. And even then, you could not walk so far as to the Lord Bishop's Palace. I doubt if you would even reach the Fore-gate."

"That I should, and shall!" cried Mary Antony. "And, if my old legs fail me, many a gallant will dismount and offer me his horse. Thus in fine style shall I ride into Worcester city. Didst thou not see me bestride the Lord Bishop's white palfrey on Play Day?"

Sister Mary Mark broke into laughter.

"Aye," she said, "my sides have but lately ceased aching. I pray you, Sister Antony, call not that sight again into my mind."

"Then open the door, Mary Mark, and let me go."

"Nay, that I dare not do."

"Then, if I fail to do as bidden by the great Lord Bishop, I shall tell his lordship that thou, and thine obstinacy, stood in the way of the fulfilment of my purpose."

The porteress wavered.

"Bring me leave from the Reverend Mother, Sister Antony."

"Nay, that can I not," said Mary Antony, "as any fool might see, when I go without the Reverend Mother's knowledge to report to the Lord Bishop by his private command. Even the Reverend Mother herself obeys the commands of the Lord Bishop."

Sister Mary Mark hesitated. She certainly had seen the Lord Bishop pa.s.s under the rose-arch, and enter the garden, in close converse with Sister Mary Antony. Yet her trust at the gate was given to her by the Reverend Mother.

"See here, Mary Mark," said Sister Antony. "I must send a message forthwith to Mother Sub-Prioress. You shall take it, leaving me in charge of the gate, as often I am left, by order of the Reverend Mother, when you are bidden elsewhere. If, on your return--and you need not to hurry--you find me gone, none can blame you. Yet when the Lord Bishop rides in at sunset, he will give you his blessing and, like enough, something besides."

Mary Mark's hesitation vanished.

"I will take your message, Sister Antony," she said meekly.

"Go, by way of the kitchens and the Refectory stairs, to the cell of Mother Sub-Prioress. Say that the Reverend Mother purposes pa.s.sing the night in prayer and vigil, will not come to the evening meal, and desires Mother Sub-Prioress to take her place. Also that for no cause whatever is the Reverend Mother to be disturbed."

Sister Mary Mark, being thus given a legitimate reason for leaving her post and gaining the Bishop's favour without giving cause for displeasure to the Prioress, departed, by way of the kitchens, to carry Mary Antony's message.

No sooner was she out of sight, than Mary Antony seized the key, unlocked the great doors, pulled them apart, and left them standing ajar, the key in the lock; then hastened back across the courtyard, pa.s.sed under the rose-arch, and creeping beneath the shelter of the yew hedge, reached the steps up to the cloisters; slipped un.o.bserved through the cloister door, and up the empty pa.s.sage; unlocked the Reverend Mother's cell, entered it, and softly closed and locked the door behind her.

Then--in order to make it impossible to yield to any temptation to open the door--she withdrew the key, and flung it through the open window, far out into the shrubbery.

Thus did Mary Antony prepare to hold the fort, until the coming of the Bishop.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

MORA DE NORELLE

Symon, Bishop of Worcester, chid himself for restlessness. Surely for once his mind had lost control of his limbs.

No sooner did he decide to walk the smooth lawns around the Castle, than he found himself mounting to the battlements; and now, though he had installed himself for greatly needed repose in a deep seat in the hall chamber, yet here he was, pacing the floor, or moving from one window to another.

By dint of hard riding he had reached Warwick while the sun, though already dipped beneath the horizon, still flecked the sky with rosy clouds, and spread a golden mantle over the west.

The lord of the Castle was away, in attendance on the King; but all was in readiness for the arrival of the Bishop, and great preparations had been made for the reception of Sir Hugh d'Argent. His people, having left Worcester early that morning, were about in the courtyard, as the Bishop rode in.

As he pa.s.sed through the doorway, an elderly woman, buxom, comely, and of motherly aspect, whom he easily divined to be the tire-woman of whom the Knight had spoken, came forward to meet him.

"Good my lord," she said, her eagerness allowing of scant ceremony, "comes Sir Hugh d'Argent hither this night?"

"Aye," replied the Bishop, looking with kindly eyes upon Mora's old nurse. "Within two hours, he should be here."

"Comes he alone, my lord?" asked Mistress Deborah.

"Nay," replied the Bishop, "the Countess of Norelle, a very n.o.ble lady to whom the Knight is betrothed, rides. .h.i.ther with him."

"The saints be praised!" exclaimed the old woman, and turned away to hide her tears.

Whilst his body-servant prepared a bath and laid out his robes, the Bishop mounted to the ramparts and watched the gold fade in the west.

He glanced at the river below, threading its way through the pasture land; at the billowy ma.s.ses of trees; at the gay parterre, bright with summer flowers. Then he looked long in the direction of the city from which he had come.

During his strenuous ride, the slow tramp of the men-at-arms, had sounded continually in his ears; the outline of that helpless figure, lying at full length upon the stretcher, had been ever before his eyes.

He could not picture the arrival at the hostel, the removal of the covering, the uprising of the Prioress to face life anew, enfolded in the arms of her lover.

As in a weary dream, in which the mind can make no headway, but returns again and yet again to the point of distress, so, during the entire ride, the Bishop had followed that stretcher through the streets of Worcester city, until it seemed to him as if, before the pall was lifted, the long-limbed, graceful form beneath it would have stiffened in death.

"A corpse for a bride! A corpse for a bride!" the hoofs of the black mare Shulamite had seemed to beat out upon the road. "Alas, poor Knight! A corpse for a bride!"

The Bishop came down from the battlements.

When he left his chamber an hour later, he had donned those crimson robes which he wore on the evening when the Knight supped with him at the Palace.

As he paced up and down the lawns, the gold cross at his breast gleamed in the evening light.

A night-hawk, flying high overhead and looking downward as it flew, might have supposed that a great scarlet poppy had left its clump in the flower-beds, and was promenading on the turf.