“And what effect do you suppose such a communication will have, my son, upon the mind of your wife?”

“I am not called to face suppositions, Reverend Father; I am simply confronted by facts.”

“Precisely, my son, precisely,” replied the Bishop, pressing his finger-tips together, and raising them to his lips.  “Yet even while dealing with causes, it is well sometimes to consider effects, lest they take us wholly unawares.  Do you realise that, as your wife felt justified in leaving the Nunnery and wedding you, solely by reason of our Lady’s miraculously accorded permission, when she learns that that permission was not miraculous, she will cease to feel justified?”

“I greatly fear it,” said the Knight.

“Do you yourself now consider that she was not justified?”

“Nay!” answered the Knight, with sudden vehemence.  “Always, since I learned how we had been tricked by her sister, I have held her to be rightfully mine.  Heaven knew, when she made her vows, that I was faithful, and she therefore still my betrothed.  Heaven allowed me to discover the truth, and to find her—­alive, and still unwed.  To my thinking, no Divine pronouncement was required; and when the Holy Father’s mandate arrived bringing the Church’s sanction, why then indeed naught seemed to stand between us.  But Mora thought otherwise.”

A tiny gleam came into the Bishop’s eyes; an exceedingly refined edition of the look of cunning which used to peep out of old Mary Antony’s.

“Have you ever heard tell, my son, that two negatives make an affirmative?  Think you not that, in something the same way, two deceptions may make a truth.  Mora was deceived into entering the Convent, and deceived into leaving it; but from out that double deception arises the great truth that she has, in the sight of Heaven, been all along yours.  The first deception negatives the second, and the positive fact alone remains that Mora is wedded to you, is yours to guard and shield from sorrow; and those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Hugh d’Argent passed his hand across his brow.

“I trust the matter may appear thus to Mora,” he said.

The banner still wafted, gently.  The Bishop gave himself time to ponder whence that draught could come.

Then:  “It will not so appear,” he said.  “My good Hugh, when your wife learns from you that she was tricked by Mary Antony, she will go back in mind to where she was before the spurious vision, and will feel herself to be still Prioress of the White Ladies.”

“I have so felt her, since the knowledge reached me,” agreed the Knight.

The efficacy of the soothing drug taken by the Bishop was strained to its utmost.

“And what then do you propose to do, my son, with this wedded Prioress?  Do you expect her to remain with you in your home, content to fulfil her wifely duties?”

“I fear,” said the Knight sadly, “that she will leave me.”