“Now when this news was brought to sister Margery by Thomas Key, it was to her as a summons from death to life. Her eye brightened and her cheek glowed when she heard of the heroic goodness of this young priest. While the sisters shuddered and shrank at each morning’s fatal news, she was consumed with a passionate desire to know what was passing in the plague-stricken town, and she plied my mother and Thomas Key with incessant questionings. ‘Who was sick of the townsfolk? Were any of the clergy visited? How went it with the poor in St Peter’s, where the pestilence was hottest?’ For some weeks she heard that the light burned still at night in St Peter’s parsonage, and that the priest was unscathed, incessant in his ministrations and blessed by his parishioners. And it seemed as though the sickness was abating. “Then, late one afternoon in early August, there came a call for Margery. Thomas Key brought it, and whether it was his own tidings, or a message from some other, I cannot say; Margery never told me. But this I know, that she took me apart in the cloister and spoke to me, and she was terribly moved and her voice was choked. ‘Little Alice,’ she said, ‘as you love me, get me the gate-key after Lauds to-night. It is life or death to me to go out into the town. Only do it, and say nothing--no, not to your mother.’ Young as I was, I knew how the nuns were used to humour my mother into letting them pass the gate; but that was in day-time. At night, in our besieged state, with the death-bells tolling all around, it seemed a terrible thing to venture. But I asked no questions. Say it was the recklessness of a girl--say it was the love that I bore to Margery. I stole the key and gave it to her after sundown. “What happened afterwards I will tell you as it was told to me by Thomas Key, who waited for her outside the gate. They passed along the dark, deserted streets. The plague-fires burnt low in the middle of the roadway, but there were none to tend them, and no living thing they saw but the starving dogs, herded at barred doors. They crossed the bridge and mounted to St Peter’s church. The priest’s manse--you know it--is a low house next the church. A white rose, still in flower, clambered on its walls, and, half hidden by its sprays, a taper gleamed through the open window; but there was no sound of life within. They pushed open the door and entered. “Stretched on his pallet, forsaken and untended, lay the young priest of St Peter’s, the pangs of death upon him. Margery threw herself on her knees by his bed-side, and Thomas watched and waited. For a time there was silence, for Margery had no voice to pray. Only at times the dying man grumbled and wandered in his talk; but little he said that Thomas understood.