Salome prepared to retire, and in a few moments she also was at rest, with her little Marie Perdue in her arms.
Christmas had come on Saturday that year. The next day being Sunday, there was another high mass to be celebrated in the chapel.
Salome, as usual, joined the nuns' procession to the choir, where the sisterhood, as was their custom, took their seats some few minutes before the entrance of the priest and his attendants.
With a heart almost pausing in its pulsations, Salome bent forward to peer through the screen upon the congregation, to see if by any chance the Duke of Hereward (or his ghost) sat among them.
With a half-suppressed cry, she recognized his form, seated in the opposite corner of the church, from the spot he had last occupied.
"He shifts his place every time he appears," she said to herself.
And now, being determined that other eyes should see him as well as her own, she touched the abbess' arm and whispered:
"Pray look before the priest enters. There is the Duke of Hereward (or his ghost) sitting quite alone in the corner pew, on the left hand side of the altar. Do you see him now?"
The abbess followed the direction with her eyes, and answered:
"No, I do not see any one there."