! hush!" said the Prioress, glancing round her nervously; "your
woes have crazed you. Besides, you have no proof. In this world there
are so many things that we cannot understand. Being an abbot, how could
he do wrong, although to us his acts seem wrong? But let us not talk
of these matters, of which, indeed, I only know from that rough-tongued
Emlyn of yours, who, I am told, was not afraid to curse him terribly.
I was about to say that whatever may be the law of it, I hold your
marriage good and true, and its issue, should such come to you, pure
and holy, and night by night I will pray that it shall be crowned with
Heaven's richest blessings."

"I thank you, dear Mother," answered Cicely, as she rose and left her.

When she had gone the Prioress rose also, and, with a troubled face,
began to walk up and down the refectory, for it was here that they had
spoken together. Truly she could not understand, for unless all these
tales were false--and how could they be false?--this Abbot, whom her
high-bred English nature had always mistrusted, this dark, able Spanish
monk was no saint, but a wicked villain? There must be some explanation.
It was only that _she_ did not understand.

Soon the news spread throughout the Nunnery, and if the sisters had
loved Cicely before, now they loved her twice as well. Of the doubts as
to the validity to her marriage, like their Prioress, they took no heed,
for had it not been celebrated in a church? But that a child was to
be born among them--ah! that was a joyful thing, a thing that had not
happened for quite two hundred years, when, alas!--so said tradition and
their records--there had been a dreadful scandal which to this day
was spoken of with bated breath. For be it known at once this Nunnery,
whatever may or may not have been the case with some others, was one of
which no evil could be said.

Beneath their black robes, however, these old nuns were still as much
women as the mothers who bore them, and this news of a child stirred
them to the marrow. Among themselves in their hours of recreation they
talked of little else, and even their prayers were largely occupied with
this same matter. Indeed, poor, weak-witted, old Sister Bridget, who
hitherto had been secretly looked down upon because she was the only one
of the seven who was not of gentle birth, now became very popular. For
Sister Bridget in her youth had been married and borne two children,
both of whom had been carried off by