CHAPTER XV.
"SHARPEN THE WITS OF MARY ANTONY" When the Prioress started upon her pilgrimage to the Cathedral with the Knight, she locked the door of her chamber, knowing that thus her absence would remain undiscovered; for if any, knocking on the door, received no answer, or trying it, found it fast, they would hasten away without question; concluding that some special hour of devotion or time of study demanded that the Reverend Mother should be free from intrusion.
The atmosphere of the empty cell, charged during the past hour with such unaccustomed forces of conflict and of passion, settled into the quietude of an unbroken stillness.
The Madonna smiled serenely upon the Holy Babe.

The dead Christ, with bowed head, hung forlorn upon the wooden cross.

The ponderous volumes in black and silver bindings, lay undisturbed upon the table; and the Bishop's chair stood empty, with that obtrusive emptiness which, in an empty seat, seems to suggest an unseen presence filling it.

The silence was complete.
But presently a queer shuffling sound began in the inner cell, as of something stiff and torpid compelling itself to action.
Then a weird figure, the wizen face distorted by grief and terror, appeared in the doorway--old Mary Antony, holding a meat chopper in her shaking hands, and staring, with chattering gums, into the empty cell.
That faithful soul, although dismissed, had resolved that the adored Reverend Mother should not go forth to meet dangers--ghostly or corporeal--alone and unprotected.
Hastening to the kitchens, she had given instructions that the evening meal was not to be served until the Reverend Mother herself should sound the bell.
Then, catching up a meat chopper, as being the most murderous-looking weapon at hand, and the most likely to strike terror into the ghostly heart of Sister Agatha, old Antony had hastened back to the passage.
Creeping up the stairs, hugging the wall, she had reached the top just in time to see, in the dim distance, the two tall white figures confronting one another.
Clinging to her chopper, motionless with horror, she had watched them, until they began, to come toward her, moving in the direction of the Reverend Mother's cell.

They were still thirty yards away, at the cloister end of the passage.