Then, with a leap, her heart went on; pounding so loudly, that she could hear it in the silence.

Yet she kept command of every impulse which drove to sound or motion.
Before long her pulses quieted; her heart, beating steadily, was once again the well-managed steed upon which her high courage could ride to victory.
And, all the while, her eyes never left the white figure; knowing it knew itself discovered and observed.
Her hand was still upon the key.
She turned it, and withdrew it from the lock.
A deafening crash of thunder shook the walls.

A swirl of wind and rain beat on the door.
When the last echo of the thunder had died away, the Prioress spoke; and that calm voice, sounding amid the storm, fell on the only ears that heard it, like the Voice of Power on Galilee, which bid the tempest cease, and the wild waves be still.
"Who art thou, and what doest thou here ?" The figure answered not.
"Art thou a ghostly visitor come back amongst us, from the Realm of the Unseen ?" The figure made no sign.

"Art thou then flesh and blood, and mortal as ourselves ?" Slowly the figure bowed its head.
"Now I adjure thee by our blessed Lady to tell me truly.

Art thou, in very deed a holy nun, a member of our sacred Order?
Answer me, yea or nay ?" The figure shook its head.
The Prioress advanced a step, passed the key into her left hand and, slipping her right beneath her scapulary, took firm grip of the dagger at her girdle.
"Then, masquerader in our sacred dress," she said, "to me you have to answer for double sacrilege: the wearing of these robes, and your presence here, unbidden.