"Because," said the old lay-sister, "when I had counted as they returned, the twenty holy ladies who had gone to Vespers, yet another passed making twenty-one. Upon which I ran and reported to the Reverend Mother, saying in my folly, that I feared the twenty-first was Sister Agatha, returned to walk amongst the Living, she being over fifty years numbered with the Dead. Yet many a time, just before dawn, have I heard her rapping on the cloister door; aye, many a time—tap! tap! tap! But what good would there be in opening to a poor lady you helped thrust into her shroud, nigh upon sixty years before? So 'Tap away!' says I; 'tap away, Sister Agatha! Try Saint Peter at the gates of Paradise. Old Antony knows better than to let you in.'"
"What said the Reverend Mother when you reported on a twenty-first
White Lady?" asked the Bishop.
"Reverend Mother bid me begone, while she herself dealt with the wraith of Sister Agatha."
"And why did you not go?" asked the Bishop, quietly.
Completely taken aback, Mary Antony's ready tongue failed her. She stood stock still and stared at the Bishop. Her gums began to rattle and she clapped her knuckles against them, horror and dismay in her eyes.
The Bishop looked searchingly into the frightened old face, and there read all he wanted to know. Then he smiled; and, taking her gently by the arm, paced on between the yew hedges.
"Sister Antony," he said, and the low tones of his voice fell like quiet music upon old Antony's perturbed spirit; "you and I, dear Sister Antony, love the Reverend Mother so truly and so faithfully, that there is nothing we would not do, to save her a moment's pain. We know how noble and how good she is; and that she will always decide aright, and follow in the footsteps of our blessèd Lady and all the holy saints. But others there are, who do not love her as we love her, or know her as we know her; and they might judge her wrongly. Therefore we must tell to none, that which we know—how the Reverend Mother, alone, dealt with that visitor, who was not the wraith of Sister Agatha."
Mary Antony peeped up at the Bishop. A light of great joy was on her face. Her eyes had lost their look of terror, and began to twinkle cunningly.
"I know naught," she said. "I saw naught; I heard naught."
The Bishop smiled.