Mary Rebecca, _she_ would have brought the place about thine ears,
telling thy wife fine tales of thine unfaithfulness; whispering that
Mary Antony is younger and fairer than she. But, nay, forsooth!
Neither of these will do! Thou must needs snatch away the Reverend
Mother, Herself! Oh, sacrilegious fiend! Stand not there mocking me!
Where is the Reverend Mother?"

"Why, here am I, dear Antony," said the Prioress, in soothing tones,
coming quickly from behind the hedge.

One glance revealed, to her relief, that the lay-sister was alone.
Tears ran down the furrows of her worn old face. She knelt upon the
grass; beside her a large nosegay of flowering weeds; upon the seat,
peas strewn from out a much-used, linen bag. Above her on a bough, a
robin perched, bending to look, with roguish eye, at the scattered peas.

To the Prioress it seemed that indeed the old lay-sister must have
taken leave of her senses.

Stooping, she tried to raise her; but Mary Antony, flinging herself
forward, clasped and kissed the Reverend Mother's feet, in an
abandonment of penitence and grief.

"Nay, rise, dear Antony," said the Prioress, firmly. "Rise! I command
it. The day is warm. Thou hast been dreaming. No bold, bad man has
forced his way within these walls. No 'Knight of the Bloody Vest' is
here. Rise up and look. We are alone."

But Mary Antony, still on her knees, half raised herself, and, pointing
to the bough above, quavered, amid her sobs: "The bold, bad man is