How long you have plotted this intrusion, I know not.

You have been thwarted in your evil purpose by the faithfulness of one old woman, our aged lay-sister, Mary Antony, who never fails to count the White Ladies as they go and as they return, and who reported at once to me that one more had returned than went.
"Do you not see in this the Hand of God?
Will you not bow in penitence before Him, confessing the sinfulness of the thing you had in mind to do ?" The shrouded head was lifted higher, as if with a proud gesture of disavowal.

At the same time, the hood slightly parting, the hand of a man, lean and brown, gripped it close.
The Prioress looked long at that lean, brown hand.
Then she rose slowly to her feet.
"Shew me--thy--face," she said; and the tension of each word was like a naked blade passing in and out of quivering flesh.
At sound of it the figure stood erect, took one step forward, flung back the hood, tore open the robe and scapulary, loosing his arms from the wide sleeves.
And--as the hood fell back--the Prioress found herself looking into a face she had not thought to see again in life--the face of him who once had been her lover..