"Margaret, you know, you--you are under age. The King"s Grace has ordered that all under twenty years of age are to leave their convents."
There was a dead silence.
Ralph was enraged with his own weakness. He had begun the morning"s work with such determination; but the strange sweet atmosphere of the house, the file of women coming in one by one with their air of innocence and defencelessness had affected him. In spite of himself his religious side had a.s.serted itself, and he found himself almost tremulous now.
He made a great effort at self-repression, and looked up with hard bright eyes at his sister.
"There must be no crying or rebellion," he said. "You must come with me to-morrow. I shall send you to Overfield."
Still Margaret said nothing. She was staring at him now, white-faced with parted lips.
"You are the last?" he said with a touch of harshness, standing up with his hands on the table. "Tell the Reverend Mother I have done."
Then she rose too.
"Ralph," she cried, "my brother! For Jesu"s sake--"
"Tell the Reverend Mother," he said again, his eyes hard with decision.
She turned and went out without a word.
Ralph found the interview with the Abbess even more difficult than he had expected.
Once her face twitched with tears; but she drove them back bravely and faced him again.
"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Torridon, that you intend to take your sister away?"
Ralph bowed.
"And that Dame Martha has asked to be released?"
Again he bowed.
"Are you not afraid, sir, to do such work?"
Ralph smiled bitterly.
"I am not, Reverend Mother," he said. "I know too much."
"From whom?"
"Oh! not from your nuns," he said sharply, "they of course know nothing, or at least will tell me nothing. It was from Dr. Layton."
"And what did Dr. Layton tell you?"
"I can hardly tell you that, Reverend Mother; it is not fit for your ears."
She looked at him steadily.
"And you believe it?"
Ralph smiled.
"That makes no difference," he said. "I am acting by his Grace"s orders."
There was silence for a moment.
"Then may our Lord have mercy on you!" she said.
She turned to where the gold cope gleamed over the chair, with the mitre and censer lying on its folds.
"And those too?" she asked.
"Those too," said Ralph.
She turned towards the door without a word.
"There are the fees as well," remarked Ralph. "We can arrange those this evening, Reverend Mother."
The little stiff figure turned and waited at the door. "And at what time will you dine, sir?"
"Immediately," said Ralph.
He was served at dinner with the same courtesy as before; but the lay sister"s eyes were red, and her hands shook as she shifted the plates.
Neither spoke a word till towards the end of the meal.
"Where is my man?" asked Ralph, who had not seen him since he had gone out with the Abbess a couple of hours before.
The sister shook her head.
"Where is the Reverend Mother?"
Again she shook her head.
Ralph enquired the hour of Vespers, and when he had learnt it, took his cap and went out to look for Mr. Morris. He went first to the little dark outhouse, and peered in over the bottom half of the door, but there was no sign of him there. He could see a horse standing in a stall opposite, and tried to make out the second horse that he knew was there; but it was too dark, and he turned away.
It was a warm October afternoon as he went out through the gatehouse, still and bright, with the mellow smell of dying leaves in the air; the fields stretched away beyond the road into the blue distance as he went along, and were backed by the thinning woods, still ruddy with the last flames of autumn. Overhead the blue sky, washed with recent rains, arched itself in a great transparent vault, and a stream of birds crossed it from east to west.
He went round the corner of the convent buildings and turned up into a meadow beside a thick privet hedge that divided it from the garden, and as he moved along he heard a low humming noise sounding from the other side.
There was a door in the hedge at the point, and at either side the growth was a little thin, and he could look through without being himself seen.
The gra.s.s was trim and smooth inside; there was a ma.s.s of autumn flowers, grown no doubt for the altar, running in a broad bed across the nearer side of the garden, and beyond it rose a grey dial, round which sat a circle of nuns.
Ralph pressed his face to the hedge and watched.