The low, faint voice had grown fainter from exhaustion, and he sank down in a deep sleep on Kate’s shoulder as he finished. She laid him carefully down, for the convent-bell was warning her that it was time to go. Wrapped in her sheet again, she passed, with Geoffrey’s aid, through the narrow window, and as he stood and watched her by the white gleam of her drapery among the leafless trees, it seemed as though all the light that was left for him in this world had departed with the bright words and kindly smile of Lady Katharine Hyde. *CHAPTER XVIII.* _*Free Again.*_ Very much surprised was dame Redwood when, the week after Easter, she received a message that the abbess of the convent of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows wished to see her on particular business, that very morning. "I have been at no tricks, mother," said poor frightened Phoebe, who was the messenger, "unless it might be about the key, but that has been hanging on its nail ever since. Do you think she means about me, mother?" "And why should she not be meaning you, you heedless thing?" replied her mother, though in her inmost heart she believed it _was_ for her own tricks she was to be called before that high dignitary, and foresaw nothing but the loss of her farm, if not something worse. But she would not let her daughter see this; so she went on scolding her with all the breath she could spare while running round to get ready for her departure. It was a pair of very frightened women who presented themselves to Mother Beatrice as she sat erect and stately in the convent parlor. The good dame, however, was thinking less of her own safety than how she could manage to keep from criminating Lady Katharine in case her part of the plot had been discovered. "You may go to your work, girl," said the abbess in an unusually gracious manner, when they had made their courtesies to her. "Dame Redwood, your daughter will make a good porteress if she is as prompt in her duty as you are."