Not a word goes with it; for she who has shown such dexterity, soon as delivering the missile, glides away; so speedily she is still in time to join the queue moving on towards the convent chapel.
Cautiously reclosing the window, Soeur Marie descends the steps of her improvised ladder, and takes up the thing that had been tossed in; which she finds to be a letter shotted inside!
Despite her burning impatience she does not open it, till after restoring the bedstead to the horizontal, and replacing all as before. For now, as ever, she has need to be circumspect, and with better reasons.
At length, feeling secure, all the more from knowing the nuns are at their vesper devotions, she tears off the envelope, and reads:—
“Mary,—Monday night next after midnight—if you look out of your window you will see friends; among them:—
“Jack Wingate.”
“Jack Wingate!” she exclaims, with a look of strange intelligence lighting up her face. “A voice from dear old Wyeside! Hope of delivery at last!”
And overcome by her emotion she sinks down upon the pallet; no longer looking sad, but with an expression contented, and beatified as that of the most devotée nun in the convent.