A deafening crash of thunder shook the walls. A swirl of wind and rain beat on the door.
When the last echo of the thunder had died away, the Prioress spoke; and that calm voice, sounding amid the storm, fell on the only ears that heard it, like the Voice of Power on Galilee, which bid the tempest cease, and the wild waves be still.
"Who art thou, and what doest thou here?"
The figure answered not.
"Art thou a ghostly visitor come back amongst us, from the Realm of the
Unseen?"
The figure made no sign. "Art thou then flesh and blood, and mortal as ourselves?"
Slowly the figure bowed its head.
"Now I adjure thee by our blessèd Lady to tell me truly. Art thou, in very deed a holy nun, a member of our sacred Order? Answer me, yea or nay?"
The figure shook its head.
The Prioress advanced a step, passed the key into her left hand and, slipping her right beneath her scapulary, took firm grip of the dagger at her girdle.
"Then, masquerader in our sacred dress," she said, "to me you have to answer for double sacrilege: the wearing of these robes, and your presence here, unbidden. I warn you that your life has never hung by frailer thread than now it hangs. Your only hope of safety lies in doing as I bid you. Pass before me along this passage until you reach a chamber on the right, of which the door stands open. Enter, and place yourself against the wall on the side farthest from the door. There I will speak with you."
With the shuffling steps of a woman, and the bent shoulders of the very old, the figure moved slowly forward, stepped upon the front of the white robe, stumbled, but recovered.
The Prioress watching, laughed—a short scornful laugh, holding more of anger than of merriment.
With an abrupt movement the figure straightened, stood at its full height, and strode forward. The Prioress marked the squaring of the broad shoulders; the height, greater than her own, though she was more than common tall; the stride, beneath the folds of the long robe; and she knit her level brows, for well she knew with whom she had to deal. She was called to face a desperate danger. Single-handed, she had to meet a subtle foe. She asked no help from others, but she took no needless risks.
As she passed the cell of Mary Seraphine, using her master-key, she locked that lady in!
CHAPTER X
"I KNOW YOU FOR A MAN"
Entering her cell, the Prioress saw at once that her orders had been obeyed.
The hooded figure stood on the far side of the chamber, leaning broad shoulders against the wall. Under the cape, the arms were folded; she could see that the feet were crossed beneath the robe. The dress was indeed the dress of a White Lady, but the form within it was so obviously that of a man—a big man, at bay, and inclined to be defiant—that, despite the strange situation, despite her anger, and her fears, the contrast between the holy habit and its hidden wearer, forced from the Prioress an unwilling smile.
Closing the door, she drew forward a chair of dark Spanish wood, the gift of the Lord Bishop; a chair which well betokened the dignity of her high office.
Seating herself, she laid her left hand lightly upon the mane of one of the carved lions which formed, on either side, the arms of the chair; but her right hand still gripped unseen the ivory hilt; while leaning slightly forward, with feet firmly planted, she was ready at any moment to spring erect.
"I know you for a man," she said.
The thunder rumbled far away in the distance.
The rain still splashed against the casement, but the storm had spent itself; the sky was brightening. A pale slant of sunshine broke through the parting clouds and, entering the casement, gleamed on the jewelled cross at the breast of the Prioress, and kindled into peculiar radiance the searching light of her clear eyes.
"I know you for a man," she said again. "You stand there, revealed; and surely you stand there, shamed. By plotting and planning, by assuming our dress, you have succeeded in forcing your undesired presence into this sacred cloister, where dwells a little company of women who have left the world, never to return to it again; who have given up much in order to devote themselves to a life of continual worship and adoration, gaining thereby a power in intercession which brings down blessing upon those who still fight life's battles in the world without.
"But it has meant the breaking of many a tender tie. There are fathers and brothers dear to them, whom the nuns would love to see again; but they cannot do so, save, on rare occasions, in the guest-room at the gate; and then, with the grille between.
"Saving Bishop or Priest, no foot of man may tread our cloisters; no voice of man may be heard in these cells.
"Yet—by trick and subterfuge—you have intruded. Methinks I scarce should let you leave this place alive, to boast what you have done."
The Prioress paused.
The figure stood, with folded arms, immovable, leaning against the
wall. There was a quality in this motionless silence such as the
Prioress had not connected with her idea of Mary Seraphine's "Cousin
Wilfred."
This was not a man to threaten. Her threat came back to her, as if she had flung it against a stone wall. She tried another line of reasoning.
"I know you, Sir Wilfred," she said. "And I know why you are here. You have come to tempt away, or mayhap, if possible, to force away one of our number who but lately took her final vows. There was a time, not long ago, when you might have thwarted her desire to seek and find the best and highest. But now you come too late. No bride of Heaven turns from her high estate. Her choice is made. She will abide by it; and so, Sir Knight, must you."
The rain had ceased. The storm was over. Sunshine flooded the cell.
Once more the Prioress spoke, and her voice was gentle.
"I know the disappointment to you must be grievous. You took great risks; you adventured much. How long you have plotted this intrusion, I know not. You have been thwarted in your evil purpose by the faithfulness of one old woman, our aged lay-sister, Mary Antony, who never fails to count the White Ladies as they go and as they return, and who reported at once to me that one more had returned than went.
"Do you not see in this the Hand of God? Will you not bow in penitence before Him, confessing the sinfulness of the thing you had in mind to do?"
The shrouded head was lifted higher, as if with a proud gesture of disavowal. At the same time, the hood slightly parting, the hand of a man, lean and brown, gripped it close.
The Prioress looked long at that lean, brown hand.
Then she rose slowly to her feet.
"Shew me—thy—face," she said; and the tension of each word was like a naked blade passing in and out of quivering flesh.
At sound of it the figure stood erect, took one step forward, flung back the hood, tore open the robe and scapulary, loosing his arms from the wide sleeves.
And—as the hood fell back—the Prioress found herself looking into a face she had not thought to see again in life—the face of him who once had been her lover.
CHAPTER XI
THE YEARS ROLL BACK
"Hugh!"