When I could see again, she
was gone. I fled to the Reverend Mother, and ran in on the roar of the
thunder."
"Saw you her face, Mary Antony?"
"Nay, Reverend Mother. But, of late, the holy Ladies mostly walk by
with their faces shrouded."
"I know. Now, see here, dear Antony. Two peas dropped together, the
while you counted one."
"Nay, Reverend Mother. Twenty peas dropped one by one; also I counted
twenty White Ladies. And, after I had counted twenty, yet another
passed."
"But how could that be?" objected the Prioress. "If twenty went, but
twenty could return. Who should be the twenty-first?"
Then old Mary Antony leaned forward, crossing herself.
"Sister Agatha," she whispered, tremulously. "Poor Sister Agatha
returned to us again."
But, even as she said it, swift came a name to the mind of the
Prioress, answering her own question, and filling her with
consternation and a great anger. "Wilfred! Wilfred, are you come to
save me?" foolish little Seraphine had said. Was such sacrilege
possible? Could one from the outside world have dared to intrude into
their holy Sanctuary?
Yet old Antony's tale carried conviction. Her abject fear was now
explained.
That the Dead should come again, and walk and move among the haunts of
men, seeking out the surroundings they have loved and left, seems
always to hold terror for the untutored mind, which knows not that the
Dead are more alive than the living; and that there is no death, saving
the death of sin.
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