for loyalty and obedience, and prays that the
blessing of the Lord may ever be with you."

The Bishop ceased speaking.

At first there was an amazed silence.

Then the unexpected happened. Mother Sub-Prioress, without any
warning, broke into passionate weeping.

Never before had Mother Sub-Prioress been known to weep. The sight
petrified the Convent. Yet somehow all knew that she wept because, in
the hard old nut which did duty for her heart, there was a kernel of
deep love for their noble Prioress.

The other nuns wept, because Mother Sub-Prioress wept.

The sobbing became embarrassing in its completeness. Wheresoever the
Bishop looked he was confronted by a weeping nun.

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 XXXVIII

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 casement, illumining the
calm old face, from which the soothing hand of death was already