"Why, here am I, dear Antony," said the Prioress, in soothing tones, coming quickly from behind the hedge.
One glance revealed, to her relief, that the lay-sister was alone. Tears ran down the furrows of her worn old face. She knelt upon the grass; beside her a large nosegay of flowering weeds; upon the seat, peas strewn from out a much-used, linen bag. Above her on a bough, a robin perched, bending to look, with roguish eye, at the scattered peas.
To the Prioress it seemed that indeed the old lay-sister must have taken leave of her senses.
Stooping, she tried to raise her; but Mary Antony, flinging herself forward, clasped and kissed the Reverend Mother's feet, in an abandonment of penitence and grief.
"Nay, rise, dear Antony," said the Prioress, firmly. "Rise! I command it. The day is warm. Thou hast been dreaming. No bold, bad man has forced his way within these walls. No 'Knight of the Bloody Vest' is here. Rise up and look. We are alone."
But Mary Antony, still on her knees, half raised herself, and, pointing to the bough above, quavered, amid her sobs: "The bold, bad man is there!"
Looking up, the Prioress met the bright eye of the robin, peeping down.
Why, surely? Yes! There was the "Bloody Vest."
The Prioress smiled. She began to understand.
The robin burst into a stream of triumphant song. At which, old Mary
Antony, still kneeling, shook her uplifted fist.