, and to realise
that she had been hocussed, hoodwinked, outwitted! In fact the Bishop
and her husband were to become, and to continue indefinitely, parties
to old Antony's deception.

She now understood the full significance of the half-humorous,
half-sceptical attitude adopted by the Bishop, when she recounted to
him the history of the vision. No wonder he had called Mary Antony a
"most wise and prudent babe."

But even as her anger rose, not only against the Bishop, but against
the old woman she had loved and trusted and who had so deceived her,
she came upon the news of the death of the aged lay-sister and the
account of her devoted fidelity, even to the end.

Mary Antony living, was often a pathetic figure; Mary Antony dead,
disarmed anger.

And, after all, the old lay-sister and her spurious vision faded into
insignificance in view of the one supreme question: What course would
Hugh take? Would he keep silence and thus tacitly become a party to
the deception; or would he, at all costs, tell her the truth?

It was evidence of the change her love had wrought in her, that this
one point was so paramount, that until it was settled, she could not
bring herself to contemplate other issues.

She remembered, with hopeful comfort, his scrupulous honesty in the
matter of Father Gervaise. Yet wherefore had he gone to consult with
the Bishop unless he intended to fall in with the Bishop's suggestions?

Not until she at last sought her chamber and knelt before the shrine of
the Madonna, did she realise that her justification in leaving the
Convent was gone, if there had been no vision.

"Blessed Virgin," she pleaded, with clasped hands uplifted; "I, who
have been twice deceived--tricked into entering the Cloister, and
tricked into leaving it--I beseech thee, by the sword which pierced
through thine own soul also, grant me now a vision which shall be, in
very deed, a VISION OF TRUTH."

CHAPTER L

THE SILVER SHIELD

The Bishop sat at the round table in the centre of the banqueting hall,
sipping water from his purple goblet while the Knight dined.

They were not alone. Lay-brethren, with sandalled feet, moved
noiselessly to and fro; and Brother Philip stood immovable behind the
Reverend Father's chair.

The Bishop discoursed pleasantly of many things, watching Hugh the
while, and blessing the efficacy of the bath. It had, undoubtedly,
cleansed away much beside travel-stains.

The thunder-cloud had l