“Which Voice we heard,” wrote Saint Peter, “when we were with Him in the Holy Mount.”  She, too, had first heard it there; but, as she descended, it was with her still.  The songs of the birds, the rush of the stream, the breeze in the pines, the bee on the wing, all Nature seemed to say:  “It is the Lord!”

Sorrow, suffering, disillusion might await her on the plain; but, with the Presence beside her, and the Voice within, she felt strong to face them, and to overcome.

Noon found her in her garden, calm and serene; yet wondering, with quickening pulses, whether at nightfall or even at sunset, Hugh would ride in; and what she must say if, giving some other reason for his journey to Worcester, he deceived her as others had deceived; failed her as others had failed.

And wondering thus, she rose and moved with slow step to the terrace.

For a while she stood pondering this hard question, her eyes lifted to the distant hills.

Then something impelled her to turn and glance into the banqueting hall, and there—­on the spot where he had knelt that she might bless him at parting—­stood Hugh, his arms folded, his eyes fixed upon her, waiting till she should see him.

CHAPTER LV

THE HEART OF A WOMAN

For a space, through the casement, they looked into one another’s eyes; she, standing in the full glory of the summer sunshine, a radiant vision of glowing womanhood; he, in the shade of the banqueting-hall, gaunt and travel-stained, yet in his eyes the light of that love which never faileth.  But, even as she looked, those dark eyes wavered, shifted, turned away, as if he could not bear any longer to gaze upon her in the sunlight.

An immense pity filled Mora’s heart.  She knew he was going to fail her; yet the pathos of that failure lay in the fact that it was the very force of his love which rendered the temptation so insuperable.

Swiftly she passed into the banqueting hall, went to him where he stood, put up her arms about his neck, and lifted her lips to his.

“I thank God, my beloved,” she said, “that He hath brought thee in safety back to me.”

Hugh’s arms, flung around her, strained her to him.  But he kept his head erect.  The muscles of his neck were like iron bands under her fingers.  She could see the cleft in his chin, the firm curve of his lips.  His eyes were turned from her.

She longed to say:  “Hugh, the Bishop’s first letter, lost on its way, hath reached my hands.  Already I know the true story of the vision.”

Yet instead she clung to his neck, crying:  “Kiss me, Hugh!  Kiss me!”

She could not rob her man of his chance to be faithful.  Also, if he were going to fail her, it were better he should fail and she know it, than that she should forever have the torment of questioning:  “Had I not spoken, would he have kept silence?”