She seemed to be again Prioress of the White Ladies.  The calm fingers of the Cloister fastened once more upon her pulsing heart.  The dignity of office developed her.

And wherefore?

Was it because, when her lips had bent above him in surrendering tenderness, her husband had chosen to give her the sign of reverent homage accorded to a prioress, rather than the embrace which would have sealed her surrender?

Or was it because he had asked her to bless him as she had been wont to bless the Poor at the Convent gate?

Or was it the unconscious action of his mind upon hers, he being suddenly called to face some difficulty which had arisen, concerning their marriage, or the Bishop’s share in her departure from the Nunnery?

The clang of the closing gates sounded in her ears as a knell.

She shivered; then remembered how she had shivered at sound of the turning of the key in the lock of the crypt-way door.  How great the change wrought by eight days of love and liberty.  She had shuddered then at being irrevocably shut out from the Cloister.  She shuddered now because the arrival of a messenger from the Bishop, and something indefinable in Hugh’s manner, had caused her to look back.

She stood quite still.  None came to seek her.  She seemed to have turned to stone.

It was not the first time this looking back had had a petrifying effect upon a woman.  She remembered Lot’s wife, going forward led by the gentle pressure of an angel’s hand, yet looking back the moment that pressure was removed.

She had gone forward, led by the sweet angel of our Lady’s gracious message.  Why should she look back?  Rather would she act upon the sacred precept:  “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before”—­this, said the apostle Saint Paul, was the one thing to do.  Undoubtedly now it was the one and only thing for her to do; leaving all else which might have to be done, to her husband and to the Bishop.

“This one thing I do,” she said aloud; “this one thing I do.”  And moving forward, in the strength of that resolve, she passed out into the sunshine.

“Do it now!” sang the thrush, in the rowan-tree.

CHAPTER XLVII

THE BISHOP IS TAKEN UNAWARES

Symon of Worcester, seated before a table in the library, pondered a letter which had reached him the evening before, brought by a messenger from the Vatican.

It was a call to return to the land he loved best; the land of sunshine and flowers, of soft speech and courteous ways; the land of heavenly beauty and seraphic sounds; and, moreover, to return as a Cardinal of Holy Church.

His acceptance or refusal must be penned before night.  The messenger expected to start upon his return journey early on the morrow.

Should he go?  Or should he stay?