Not just
yet could she bear to see the Reverend Mother's countenance, without
that expression of wonderful tenderness. And even as she realised
this, the key grated in the lock below.
Taking up her position at the top of the steps, the five-and-twenty
peas in her right hand, Mary Antony quickly made up her mind. She
could not lift her eyes to the Reverend Mother's face. She would count
the passing feet.
The young lay-sister who carried the light, stumped up the steps, and
set down the lantern with a clatter. She plumped on to her knees
opposite to Mary Antony.
"Sister Mary Rebecca leads to-day," she chanted in a low voice, "and
all the way hath stepped upon my heels."
But Mary Antony took no notice of this information, which, at any other
time, would have delighted her.
Head bowed, eyes on the ground, she awaited the passing feet.
They came, moving slow and sedate.
They passed--stepping two by two, out of her range of vision; moving
along the cloister, dying away in the distance.
All had passed.
Nay! Not all? Another comes! Surely, another comes?
Sister Abigail, lifting the lantern, rose up noisily.
"What wait you for, Sister Antony? The holy Ladies have by now entered
their cells."
Mary Antony lifted startled eyes.
The golden bars of sunlight fell across an empty cloister.
A few white figures in the passage, seen in the distance through the
open door, were vanishing, one by one, into their cells.
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