CHAPTER XXVI
LOVE NEVER FAILETH
The Bishop awaited the Prioress on that stone seat under the beech, from which the robin had carried off the pea.
He saw her coming through the sunlit cloisters.
As she moved down the steps, and came swiftly toward him, he was conscious at once of an indefinable change in her.
Had that ride upon Icon set her free from trammels in which she had been hitherto immeshed?
As she reached him, he took both her hands, so that she should not kneel.
"Already I have been received with obeisance, my daughter," he said; and told her of old Mary Antony's quaint little figure, standing to do the honours in the doorway.
The Prioress, at this, laughed gaily, and in her turn told the Bishop of the scene, on this very spot, when old Antony displayed her peas to the robin.
"What peas?" asked the Bishop; and so heard the whole story of the twenty-five peas and the daily counting, and of the identifying of certain of the peas with various members of the Community. "And a large, white pea, chosen for its fine aspect, was myself," said the Prioress; "and, leaving the Sub-Prioress and Sister Mary Rebecca, Master Robin swooped down and flew off with me! Hearing cries of distress, I hastened hither, to find Mary Antony denouncing the robin as 'Knight of the Bloody Vest,' and making loud lamentations over my abduction. Her imaginings become more real to her than realities."