“My Lord Bishop, you have wrung from me a confession of my love; but in so doing, you have wrung from me a confession of sin.  A nun may not yield to such love as Hugh d’Argent still desires to win from me.  With long hours of prayer and vigil, have I sought to purge my soul from the stain of a weak yielding—­even for ’a moment’—­to the masterful insistence of this man, who forced himself, by the subterfuge of a sacrilegious masquerade, into the sacred precincts of our Nunnery.  I know not whom he bribed”—­continued the Prioress, flashing an indignant glance of suspicion at the Bishop.

“‘Love thinking no evil,’” murmured Symon of Worcester.

“But I do know, that somebody in high authority must have connived at his plotting, or he could not have found himself alone in the crypt at the hour of Vespers, in such wise as to assume our dress and, mingling with the returning procession, gain entrance to the cloisters.  And somebody must still be aiding and abetting his plans, or he could not be, as he himself told me he would be, daily in the crypt alone, during the hour when we pass to and from the clerestory.  It angers me, my lord, to think that one who should, in this, be on my side, taketh part against me.”

“‘Is not easily provoked,’” quoted the Bishop.

“In fact I am tempted, my lord,” said the Prioress, rising to her feet, tall and indignant, “I am almost tempted, my Lord Bishop, to forget the reverence which I owe to your high office——­”

“‘Doth not behave itself unseemly,’” murmured Symon of Worcester, putting on his biretta.

The Prioress turned her back upon the Bishop, and walked over to the window.  She was so angry that she felt the tears stinging beneath her eyelids; yet at the same time she experienced a most incongruous desire to kneel down beside that beautiful and dignified figure, rest her head against the Bishop’s knees, and pour out the cruel tale of conflicts, uncertainties and strivings, temptations and hard-won victories, which, had lately made up the sum of her nights and days.  He had been her trusted friend and counsellor during all these years.  Yet now she knew him arrayed against her, and she feared him more than she feared Hugh.  Hugh wrestled with her feelings; and, on the plane of the senses, she knew her will would triumph.  But the Bishop wrestled with her mentality; and behind his calm gentleness was a strength of intellect which, if she yielded at all, would seize and hold her, as steel fingers in a velvet glove.

She returned to her seat, composed but determined.

“Reverend Father,” she said, “I pray you to pardon my too swift indignation.  To you I look to aid me in this time of difficulty.  I grieve for the sorrow and disappointment to a brave and noble knight, a loyal lover, and a most faithful heart.  But I cannot reward faith with un-faith.  If I broke my sacred vows in order to give myself to him, I should not bring a blessing to his home.  Better an empty hearth than a hearth where broods a curse.  Besides, we never could live down the scandal caused.  I should be anathema to all.  The Pope himself would doubtless excommunicate us.  It would mean endless sorrow for me, and danger for Hugh.  On these grounds, alone, it cannot be.”