CHAPTER LX.
THE CONVENT BELL The slanting rays of the setting sun lay, in golden bands, upon the flags of the Convent cloister.
Complete silence reigned.
The White Ladies had returned from Vespers.

Each, in the solitude of her own cell, was spending, in prayer and meditation, the hour until the Refectory bell should ring.
The great door into the cloisters stood wide.
Mother Sub-Prioress appeared in the far distance, moving down the passage.

As she passed between the long line of closed doors, she turned her face quickly from side to side, pausing occasionally to listen, ear laid against the panelling.
Presently she stepped from the cool shadow into the sunny brightness of the cloister.
She did not blink, as old Mary Antony used to blink.

Her small eyes peered from out her veil as sharply in sunshine as in shadow.
Yet was there something curiously furtive about Mother Sub-Prioress, when she entered the cloister.

Listening at the doors in the cell passage, she had been merely official, acting with a precise celerity which bespoke long practice.