ul soul, although dismissed, had resolved that the adored
Reverend Mother should not go forth to meet dangers--ghostly or
corporeal--alone and unprotected.

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