CHAPTER IX.
THE QUARRY Sarrion called at the convent school of the Sisters of the True Faith the next morning, and was informed through the grating that the school was in Retreat.
"Even I, whose duty it is to speak to you, shall have to perform penance for doing so," said the doorkeeper, in her soft voice through the bars.
"Then do an extra penance, my sister," returned Sarrion, "and answer another question.

Tell me if the Sor Teresa is within ?" "The Sor Teresa is at Pampeluna, and the Mother Superior is here in the school herself.

The Sor Teresa is only Sister Superior, you must know, and is therefore subordinate to the Mother Superior." Sarrion was a pleasant-spoken man, and a man of the world.

He knew that if a woman has something to tell of another she is not to be frightened into silence by the whole Court of Cardinals and eke, the Pope of Rome himself.

So he drew his horse nearer to the forbidding wooden gate, and did not ride away from it until he had gained some scraps of information and saddled the lay sister with a burden of penances to last all through the Retreat.
He learnt that his sister had been sent to Pampeluna, where the Sisters of the True Faith conducted another school, much patronised by the poor nobility of that priest-ridden city.