Mora’s brow cleared.

“I think I understand, my lord; and that you should so feel, helps me to confess to you a thing which I have scarce dared admit to myself.  I found it difficult in mine own soul to attach due weight to our blessed Lady’s words as heard by Mary Antony.  Mine own test—­the robin’s flight, straight from the hand of the Madonna to the world without—­spoke with more sense of truth to my heart.  I blame myself for this; but so it is.  Yet it was the vision which decided me as to my clear path of duty.”

“Doubtless,” remarked the Bishop, “the medium of Mary Antony took from the solemnity of the pronouncement.  There would be a twist of quaintness in even the holiest vision, as described by the old lay-sister.”

“Nay, my lord,” said Mora.  “Truth to tell, it was not so.  Once fairly started on the telling, she seemed lifted into a strange sublimity of utterance.  I marvelled at it, and at the unearthly radiance of her face.  At the end, I thought she slept; but later I heard from the Sub-Prioress that she was found swooning before the crucifix and they had much ado to bring her round.

“My lord, my heart fails me when I think to-day of my empty cell, and of the sore perplexity of my nuns.  How soon will it be possible that you see them and put the matter right, by giving the Holy Father’s message?”

“So soon as you are wed, my daughter, I ride back to Worcester.  I shall endeavour to reach the Convent before the hour when they leave for Vespers.”

“May I beg, my lord, that you speak a word of especial kindness to old Antony, whose heart will be sore at my departure?  I had thought to bid her be silent concerning the vision; but as she declares the shining Knight was Saint George or Saint Michael, the nuns, in their devout simplicity, will doubtless hold the vision to have been merely symbolic of my removal to ‘higher service.’”

“I will seek old Antony,” said the Bishop, “and speak with her alone.”

“Father,” said Mora, with deep emotion, “during all these years, you have been most good to me; kind beyond words; patient always.  I fear I ofttimes tried you by being too firmly set on my own will and way.  But, I pray you to believe, I ever valued your counsel and could scarce have lived without your friendship.  Last night, on first entering the Castle, I fear I spoke wildly and acted strangely.  I was sore overwrought.  I came in, out of the night, not knowing whom I should find in the hall chamber; and—­for a moment, my lord, for one wild, foolish moment—­I took you not for yourself but for another.”

“For whom did you take me, my daughter?” asked the Bishop.

“For one of whom you have oft reminded me, my lord, if I may say so without offence, seeing I speak of a priest who was the ideal of my girlhood’s dreams.  Knew you, many years ago, one Father Gervaise, held in high regard at the Court, confessor to the Queen and her ladies?”