Suddenly Mother Sub-Prioress dried her eyes, holding herself once more in control. It had just occurred to her that the Bishop's word could not be taken against the evidence of all their senses! On that very morning, at five o'clock the Convent call to rise had been rung from _within_ the Prioress's cell!

So Mother Sub-Prioress dried her eyes, punished her nose for sharing in the general breakdown, and looking with belligerent eye at the Bishop, said: "_If_ the Reverend Mother _be_ not within her cell, _perhaps_ it will please you, my lord, to _inform_ the Convent who is within it!"

"That point," said the Bishop, "can speedily be settled."

He took from his girdle the Prioress's master-key, handed over to him before he left Warwick.

Fitting it into the lock, he opened the door of the cell, and entered, followed by the Sub-Prioress and a crowd of palpitating, eager nuns.

A few paces from the door the Bishop paused, signing to Mother Sub-Prioress to come forward, but restraining, with uplifted hand, those who pressed in behind her.

The chamber was very still.

The chair of the Prioress was empty.

But, before the shrine of the Madonna, there lay, stretched upon the floor, the unconscious form of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

THE BISHOP KEEPS VIGIL

Old Mary Antony lay dying.

The Bishop had not allowed her to be carried from the cell of the Prioress, to her own.

He had commanded that the Reverend Mother's couch be moved from the inner room and placed before the shrine of the Virgin. On this lay Mary Antony, while the Bishop himself kept watch beside her.

The evening light came in through the open cas.e.m.e.nt, illumining the calm old face, from which the soothing hand of death was already smoothing the wrinkles.

Five hours had pa.s.sed since they found her.

It had taken long to restore her to consciousness; and so soon as she awoke to her surroundings, and recognised Mother Sub-Prioress, and the many faces around her, she relapsed into silence, refusing to answer any questions, yet keeping her eyes anxiously fixed upon the door.

Seeing which, Sister Teresa slipped from the room and ran secretly to tell the Lord Bishop, who had paid but a brief visit to the Palace and was now pacing the lawn below the cloisters.

The Bishop came at once; when, seeing him enter, Mary Antony gave a cry, striving to raise herself from the pillows.

Moving to the bedside, the Bishop laid his hand upon the shaking hands, which had been clasped at sight of him.

An eager question was in the eyes lifted to his.

The Bishop bent over the couch.

"Yes," he said, and smiled.

The anxious look faded. The eyes closed. A triumphant smile illumined the dying face.

Turning, the Bishop asked a few whispered questions of the Sub-Prioress.

Mary Antony had taken a sip of wine, but seemed to find it impossible to partake of food. She had been so long without, that now nature refused it.

"Undoubtedly she is dying," said Mother Sub-Prioress, not unkindly, but in the matter-of-fact tone of one to whom the hard outline of a fact is unsoftened by the atmosphere of imagination or of sympathy.

"I know it," said the Bishop, in low tones. "Therefore am I come to confess our sister and to administer the final rites and consolations of the Church. I have with me all that is needed. You may now withdraw, and leave me to watch alone beside Sister Mary Antony."

"We sent for Father Peter," began Mother Sub-Prioress, "but she paid no heed to any of his questions, neither would she"----

The Bishop took one step toward Mother Sub-Prioress, with uplifted hand, pointing to the door.

Mother Sub-Prioress hastened out.

The Bishop followed her into the pa.s.sage, where a waiting crowd of nuns created that atmosphere of excited tension, which seizes certain minds at the near approach of death.

"I bid you all to go to your cells," said the Bishop, "there to spend the next hour in earnest prayer for the pa.s.sing soul of this aged nun who, during so long a time, has lived and worked in this Convent. Let every door be closed. I keep the final vigil alone. When I need help I shall ring the Convent bell."

Immovable in the pa.s.sage stood the Bishop, until every figure had vanished; every door had closed.

Then he re-entered the Prioress's cell, and shut the door.

He placed the holy oil on the step, before the shrine of the Madonna, just where old Antony had knelt when she had prayed our blessed Lady to be pleased to sharpen her old wits.

Then he drew forth a tiny flask of rare Italian workmanship, let fall a few drops from it into a spoonful of wine, and firmly poured the liquid between the old lay-sister's parted lips.

One anxious moment; then he heard her swallow.

At that, the Bishop drew the Prioress's chair to the side of the couch, and sat down to await events.

In a few moments the stertorous breathing ceased, the open mouth closed. Mary Antony sighed thrice, as a little child that has wept before sleeping sighs in its sleep.

Then she opened her eyes, and fixed them on the Bishop.

"Reverend Father"--she began, then chuckled, gleefully. Her voice had come back, and with it a great activity of brain, though the hands upon the coverlet seemed to belong to someone else, and she hoped they would not rise up and strike her. Her feet, she could not feel at all; but, seeing that she was most comfortably lying there where she best loved to be, why should she require feet? Feet are such tired things. One rests better without them.

"Speak low," said the Bishop, bending forward. "Speak low, dear Sister Antony; partly to spare thy strength; and partly because, though I have sent all the White Ladies to their cells, our good Mother Sub-Prioress, in her natural anxiety for thy welfare, may be outside the door, even now."

Mary Antony chuckled.

"If we could but thrust a nail through into her ear," she whispered.

Then suddenly serious, she put the question which already her eyes had asked: "Did I succeed in keeping from them the flight of the Reverend Mother, until you arrived, Reverend Father?"

"Yes, faithful heart, wise beyond all expectation, you did."

Again Mary Antony chuckled.

"I locked them out," she said, with a knowing wink, "but I also took them in. Yea, verily, I took them in! Scores of times they called me 'Reverend Mother.' 'Open the door, I humbly pray you, Reverend Mother,' pleaded Mother Sub-Prioress at the keyhole. '_Dixi: Custodiam vias meas_,' chanted Mary Antony, in a beauteous voice! . . . 'Open, open, Reverend Mother!' besought a mult.i.tude without. '_Quid multiplicati sunt gui tribulant me_!' intoned Mary Antony, within. . . . 'Most dear and Reverend Mother,' crooned Sister Mary Rebecca, at midnight, 'I have something of deepest importance to say'--'_Dixit insipiens_,' was Mary Antony's appropriate response. Eh, and Sister Mary Rebecca, thinking none could observe her, had already been round, in the moonlight, and attempted to climb a tree. All the Reverend Mother's windows were closely curtained; but old Antony had her eye to a crack, and the sight of Sister Mary Rebecca climbing, made all the other trees to shake with laughter, but is not a sight to be described to the great Lord Bishop. . . . Nay, then!"--with a startled cry--"Why doth this knotted finger rise up and shake itself at me?"