As she passed up the steps into the cloisters, she noted that Mary Antony was not in her accustomed place.
Slightly wondering, and half unconsciously explaining to herself that the old lay-sister had probably for some reason gone forward with the Sub-Prioress, the Prioress moved down the now empty passage and entered her own cell.
On the threshold she paused, astonished.
In front of the shrine of the Madonna, knelt Mary Antony in a kind of trance, hands clasped, eyes fixed, lips parted, the colour gone from her cheeks, yet a radiance upon her face, like the after-glow of a vision of exceeding glory.
She appeared to be wholly unconscious of the presence of the Prioress, who recovering from her first astonishment, closed the door, and coming forward laid her hand gently upon the old woman's shoulder.
Mary Antony's eyes remained fixed, but her lips moved incessantly.
Bending over her, the Prioress could make out disjointed sentences.
"Gone! . . . But it was at our Lady's bidding. . . . Flown? Ah, gay little Knight of the Bloody Vest! Nay, it must have been the archangel Gabriel, or maybe Saint George, in shining armour. . . . How shall we live without the Reverend Mother? But the will of our blessèd Lady must be done."
"Antony!" said the Prioress. "Wake up, dear Antony! You are dreaming again. You are thinking of the robin and the pea. I have not gone from you; nor am I going. See! I am here."
She turned the old face about, and brought herself into Mary Antony's field of vision.
Slowly a light of recognition dawned in those fixed eyes; then came a cry, as of fear and of a great dismay; then a gasping sound, a clutching of the air. Mary Antony had fallen prone, before the shrine of the Madonna.