“The sin, my daughter, as I will presently explain, is scarcely so great as you think it.  But, such as it is, it arose from a lack of calmness and of that mental equipoise which sails unruffled through a sea of contradiction.  The irritability which results in displays of sudden temper is so foreign to your nature that it points to your having passed through a time of very special strain, both mental and physical; probably overlong vigils and fastings, while you wrestled with this anxious problem upon which so much, in the future, depends.

“As you ask me for penance, I will give you two:  one which will set right your ill-considered action; the other which will help to remedy the cause of that action.

“The first is, that you place these fragments together and, taking a fresh piece of vellum, make a careful copy of this writing which you destroyed.

“The second is that, in order to regain the usual equipoise of your mental attitude, you ride to-day, for an hour, in the river meadow.  My white palfrey, Iconoklastes, shall be in the courtyard at noon.  Yesterday, my daughter, you rode for pleasure.  To-day you will ride for penance; and incidentally”—­an irrepressible little smile crept round the corners of the Bishop’s mouth, and twinkled in his eyes—­“incidentally, my daughter, you will work off a certain stiffness from which you must be suffering, after the unwonted exercise.  Ah me!” said the Bishop, “that is ever the Divine method.  Punishments should be remedial, as well as deterrent.  There is much stiffness of mind of which we must be rid before we can stoop to the portal of God’s ‘whosoever’ and, passing through the narrow gate, enter the Kingdom of Heaven as little children.”

The Bishop rose, and giving his hand to the Prioress raised her to her feet.

“My lord,” she said, “as ever you are most kind to me.  Yet I fear you have been too lenient for my own peace of mind.  To have destroyed in anger the mandate of His Holiness——­”

“Nay, my daughter,” said the Bishop.  “The mandate of His Holiness, inscribed upon parchment, from which hangs the great seal of the Vatican, is safely placed among my most precious documents.  You have but destroyed the result of an hour’s careful work.  I rose betimes this morning to make this copy.  I should not have allowed you to tear it, had not the writing been my own.  But I took pains to reproduce exactly the peculiar style of lettering they use in Rome, and you will do the same in your copy.”

Turning, the Bishop knelt for a few moments in prayer before the Madonna.  He could not have explained why, but somehow the only hope for Hugh seemed to be connected with this spot.

Yet it was hardly reassuring that, when he lifted grave and anxious eyes, our Lady gently smiled, and the sweet Babe looked merry.

Rising, the Bishop turned, with unwonted sternness, to the Prioress.

“Remember,” he said, “Hugh rides away to-morrow night; rides away, never to return.”