Her heart throbbed painfully.  Alas, it was still the heart of a nun.  It would not be controlled.  Must she hear wild tales of wickedness and shame, of which she would but partly understand the meaning?

Oh, for the calm of the Cloister!  Oh, for the sheltered purity of her quiet cell!

Yet his eyes, still meeting hers, were clear and fearless.

“I listen,” she said.

“Mora, not long ago a wondrous tale was told me of a man’s great love for thee—­a man, nobler than I, in that he mastered all selfish desires; a love higher than mine, in that it put thy welfare, in all things, first.  Hearing this tale, I failed both myself and thee, for I said:  ’I pray heaven that, if she come to me, she may never know that she once won the love of so greatly better a man than I.’  But, since I clasped thy hand in mine, and the Bishop, laying his on either side, gave thee to be my wife, I have known there would be no peace for me if I feared to trust thee with this knowledge, because that the man who loved thee was a better man than the man who, by God’s mercy and our Lady’s grace, has won thee.”

As the Knight spoke thus, the grey eyes fixed on his face grew wide with wonder; soft, with a great compunction; yet, at the corners, shewed a little crinkle in which the Bishop would instantly have recognised the sign of approaching merriment.

Was this then a sample of the unknown sins of men?  Nothing here, surely, to cause the least throb of apprehension, even to the heart of a nun!  But what strange tale had reached the ears of this most dear and loyal Knight?  She leaned a little nearer to him, speaking in a tone which was music to his heart.

“Dear Knight of mine,” she said, “no tale of a man’s love for me can have been a true one.  Yet am I glad that, deeming it true, and feeling as it was your first impulse to feel, you now tell me quite frankly what you felt, thus putting from yourself all sense of wrong, while giving me the chance to say to you, that none more noble than this faithful Knight can have loved me; for, saving a few Court pages, mostly popinjays, and Humphry of Camforth, of whom the less said the better, no other man hath loved me.”

More kindly she looked on him than she yet had looked.  She leaned across the table.

By reaching out his arms he could have caught her lovely face between his hands.

Her eyes were merry.  Her lips smiled.

Greatly tempted was the Knight to agree that, saving himself, and Humphry of Camforth, of whom the less said the better, none save Court popinjays had loved her.  Yet in his heart he knew that ever between them would be this fact of his knowledge of the love of Father Gervaise for her, and of the noble renunciation inspired by that love.  He had no intention of betraying the Bishop; but Mora’s own explanation, making it quite clear that she would not be likely to suspect the identity of the Bishop with his supposed cousin, Father Gervaise, seemed to the Knight to remove the one possible reason for concealment.  He was willing to risk present loss, rather than imperil future peace.