“Oh, to be one with God and with Nature!” she cried.  “Oh, to know the essential mysteries of Life and Light and Love!  This is Life Eternal!”

She had forgotten the old lay-sister; aye, for the moment she had forgotten the Convent and the cloister, the mile-long walk in darkness, the chant of the unseen monks.  She trod again the springy heather of her youth; she heard the rush of the mountain stream; the sigh of the great forest; the rustle of the sunlit glades, alive with, life.  These all were in the robin’s song.  Then——­

Within the Convent, the Refectory bell clanged loudly.

The Prioress let fall her arms.

She picked up the nosegay of weeds.

“Come, Antony,” she said, “let us go and discover whether Sister Mary Augustine hath contrived to make the pasties light and savoury, even without the aid of the advice she might have had from thee.”

Old Mary Antony, gleeful and marvelling, followed the stately figure of the Prioress.  Never was shriven soul more blissfully at peace.  She had kept back nothing; yet the Reverend Mother had imposed no punishment, had merely asked a promise which, in the fulness of her gratitude, Mary Antony had found it easy to give.

Truly the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress should, for the future, contain naught but what was grateful and soothing.

But, as she entered the Refectory behind the Reverend Mother and saw all the waiting nuns arise, old Mary Antony laid her finger to her nose.

“That ‘little bird’ shall have the castor beans,” she said, “That ‘little bird’ shall have them.  Not my pretty robin, but the other!”

And, sad to say, poor Sister Seraphine was sorely griped that night, and suffered many pangs.

CHAPTER VII

THE MADONNA IN THE CLOISTER

The Prioress knelt, in prayer and meditation, before the figure of the Virgin Mother holding upon her knees the holy Babe.

Moonlight flooded the cell with a pure radiance.

Mary Antony’s posy of weeds, offered, according to promise, at the Virgin’s shrine, took on, in that silver splendour, the semblance of lilies and roses.

The Prioress knelt long, with clasped hands and bowed head, as white and as motionless as the marble before her.  But at length she lifted her face, and broke into low pleading.

“Mother of God,” she said, “help this poor aching heart; still the wild hunger at my breast.  Make me content to be at one with the Divine, and to let Nature go. . . .  Thou knowest it is not the man I want.  In all the long years since he played traitor to his troth to me, I have not wanted the man.  The woman he wed may have him, unbegrudged by me.  I do not envy her the encircling of his arms, though time was when I felt them strong and tender.  I do not want the man, but—­O, sweet Mother of God—­I want the man’s little child!  I envy her