Keeping their distances, mostly with shrouded faces, bent heads, and
folded hands, all the White Ladies passed.

Each went in silence to her cell, there kneeling in prayer and
contemplation until the Refectory bell should call to the evening meal.

As the last, save one, went by, the keen eyes of the old lay-sister
noted that her hands were clenched against her breast, that she
stumbled at the topmost step, and caught her breath with a half sob.

Behind her, moving quickly, came the spare form of the Sub-Prioress,
ferret-faced, alert, vigilant; fearful lest sin should go unpunished;
wishful to be the punisher.

She must have heard the half-strangled sob burst from the slight figure
stumbling up the steps before her, had not old Mary Antony been
suddenly moved at that moment to uplift her voice in a cracked and
raucous "Amen."

Startled, and vexed at being startled, the Sub-Prioress turned upon
Mary Antony.

"Peace, woman!" she said. "The Convent cloister is not a hen-yard.
Such ill-timed devotion well-nigh merits penance. Rise from thy knees,
and go at once about thy business."

The Sub-Prioress hastened on.

Scowling darkly, old Antony bent forward, looking, past Mother
Sub-Prioress, up the cloister to the distant passage.