The Bishop’s hand rested upon the parapet.  The stone in his ring held neither blue nor purple lights.  Its colour had paled and faded.  It shone—­as the Prioress had once seen it shine—­like a large tear-drop on the Bishop’s finger.

Deep dejection was in the Bishop’s attitude.  With the riding away of the Knight, something strong and vital seemed to have passed out of his life.

A sense of failure oppressed him.  He had not succeeded in bending Hugh d’Argent to his will, neither had he risen to a frank appreciation of the loyal chivalry which would not enjoy happiness at the expense of honour.

While his mind refused to accept the Knight’s code, his soul yearned to rise up and acclaim it.

Yet, working to the last for Mora’s peace of mind, he had maintained his tone of scornful disapproval.

He would never again have the chance to cry “Hail!” to the Silver Shield.  The deft fingers of his sophistry had striven to loosen the Knight’s shining armour.  How far they had succeeded, the Bishop could not tell.  But, as he watched the swiftly moving river, he found himself wishing that his task had been to strengthen, rather than to weaken; to gird up and brace, rather than subtly to unbuckle and disarm.  Yet by so doing, would he not have been ensuring his own happiness, bringing back the joy of life to his own heart, at the expense of the two whom he had given to be each other’s in the Name of the Divine Trinity?

If Hugh persisted in his folly, he would lose his bride, yet would the Bishop meet and reinstate the Prioress with a clear conscience, having striven to the very last to dissuade the Knight.

If, on the other hand, Hugh, growing wiser as he rode northward, decided to keep silence, why then the sunny land he loved, and the Cardinal’s office, for Symon, Bishop of Worcester.

But meanwhile, two weeks of uncertainty; and the Bishop could not abide uncertainty.

He turned from the river and began to pace the lawn slowly from end to end, his head bent, his hands clasped behind him.

Each time he reached the wall between the garden and the courtyard, he found himself confronted by two rose trees, a red and a white, climbing so near together that their branches intertwined, crimson blooms resting their rich petals against the fragrant fairness of their white neighbours.

Presently these roses became symbolic to the Bishop—­the white, of the fair presence of the Prioress; the red, of the high honour awaiting him in Rome.

He was seized by the whimsical idea that, were he to close his eyes, beseech the blessed Saint Joseph to guide his hand, take three steps forward, and pluck the first blossom his fingers touched, he might put an end to this tiresome uncertainty.

But he smiled at the childishness of the fancy.  It savoured of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, playing with her peas and confiding in her robin.  Moreover the Bishop never did anything with his eyes shut.  He would have slept with them open, had not Nature decreed otherwise.