“Tush, child! Shouldst have made thy choice boldly. And he whom you had left of the two would be no worse off than now. This shilly-shally likes me not. In a convent, and no nun! A lovely, free woman, and no wife! Either wed or pray, say I. Nay, my dear, though I threatened your cousin with it, I have known it long: your vocation is not with us! With the blessing of God, I’ll yet give the house a feast on the day of Mistress Harcourt’s wedding with my Lord Rockhurst’s son!” The renewal of clamour without, the report of a musket, the shattering of a few more panes of glass in the high windows, all but drowned the valiant woman’s words. Yet Diana had caught the drift of them, and clasped the stout shoulders in sudden embrace. “Wedding! ’Tis more like we feast with death this day!” “Why, then, ’tis the best feast of all,” cried the Abbess, petulantly. There came three measured, emphatic blows upon the door. Then, above the loud, continuous howl of the mob, a ringing call:— “Stand back, there within, stand back for your lives! We now blow your door in.—Stand back!” “’Tis Cousin Lionel’s voice,” whispered Diana, with white lips. “Sho!” returned the old lady, with great contempt. She caught Diana by the shoulder and dragged her to the entrance of the passage, where she paused, panting, being somewhat weighty for such swift movements. Bindon, trailing a musket, clattered in their rear. “Aye, truly,” she said to him, “I begin to think this may be the end. Tut! Where lag those sluggard guards? Sho! Here now come my silly children!—Well, well, Sister Magdalen, my pastoral staff! So we have visitors we shall receive in state.” She took the crook from the hands of the nun; then, waving back the community, terrified now even to speechlessness:— “Back to your stalls, daughters! Shame on you! Shall not the shepherd come when he pleases, and shall he find the sheep dispersed?” She rang her staff threateningly on the flags, and the fluttering bevy fled back to the chapel. “Sheep, indeed—poor things!” chuckled the Abbess. She was chuckling still when the thud of the explosion came. It seemed to lift the stone house about them, to make the solid flags heave under their feet. For one instant Diana deemed that they all had been blown in pieces as well as the convent; and, opening her eyes after a reeling moment, was considerably astonished to find herself whole and sound. Before her, in stout equilibrium, was the Abbess, jubilantly chanting a psalm; beside her, Bindon on one knee, poising his firelock. The words he was breathing were not those of prayer. There was a burst of wailing from the chapel within. Through the porch a wall of white smoke rolled up in swirls. “They’ve made the breach; the door is down,” said Bindon, superfluously.