By rapid transition of mind, he was back on the seat in the garden of the White Ladies’ Nunnery, left there by Mary Antony while she went to fetch the Reverend Mother.  He was looking up the sunny lawn toward the cloisters, from out the shade of the great beech tree.  Presently he saw the Prioress coming, tall and stately, her cross of office gleaming upon her breast, her sweet eyes alight with welcome.  And at once they were talking as they always talked together—­he and she—­each word alive with its very fullest meaning; each thought springing to meet the thought which matched it.

Next he saw himself again on that same seat, looking up the lawn to the sunlit cloisters; realising that never again would the Prioress come to greet him; facing for the first time the utter loneliness, the irreparable loss to himself, of that which he had accomplished for Hugh and Mora.

The Bishop’s immeasurable loss had been Hugh’s infinite gain.  And now that Hugh seemed bent upon risking his happiness, the positions were reversed.  Would not his loss, if he persisted, be the Bishop’s gain?

How easy to meet her on the road, a few miles from Worcester; to proceed, with much pomp and splendour, to the White Ladies’ Nunnery; to bid them throw wide the great gates; to ride in and, then and there, reinstate Mora as Prioress, announcing that the higher service upon which the Holy Father had sent her had been duly accomplished.  Picture the joy in the bereaved Community!  But, above and beyond all, picture what it would mean to have her there again; to see her, speak with her, sit with her, when he would.  No more loneliness of soul, no more desolation of spirit; and Mora’s conscience at rest; her mind content.

But at that, being that it concerned the woman he loved, the true soul of him spoke up, while his imaginative reason fell silent.

Never again could the woman who had told Hugh d’Argent, in words of perfect tenderness, the wonder of her love, and that she was ready on the morrow to ride home with him, be content in the calm of the Cloister.

If Hugh persisted in this folly of frankness and disturbed her peace, she might leave him.

If the Bishop made the way easy, she might return to the Nunnery.

But all the true life of her would be left behind with her lover.

She would bring to the Cloister a lacerated conscience, and a broken heart.

Surely the two men who loved her, if they thrust away all thought of self, and thought only of her, could save her this anguish.

At once the Bishop resolved to do his part.

“My dear Hugh,” he said, “you did well to come to me in order to consult over these plans before taking the irrevocable step which should set them in motion.  I, alone, could reinstate your wife as Prioress of the White Ladies; moreover my continued presence here would be essential, to secure her comfort in that reinstatement.  And I shall not be here.  I am shortly leaving Worcester, leaving this land and returning to my beauteous Italy.  The Holy Father has been pleased to tell me privately of high preferment shortly to be offered me.  I have to-day decided to accept it.  I return to Italy a Cardinal of Holy Church.”