Yet, while he was still hers, his honour untarnished, she longed for the touch of his lips.

“Kiss me,” she whispered again, not knowing how ten-fold more hard she thus made it for him.

But loosing his arms from around her, he took her face between his hands, looking long into her eyes, with such a yearning of hunger, grief, and regret, that her heart stood still.  Then, just as, rendered dizzy by his nearness, she closed her eyes, she felt his lips upon her own.

For a moment she was conscious of nothing save that she was his.

Then her mind flew back to the last time they had stood, thus.  Again the underground smell of damp earth seemed all about them; again her heart was torn by love and pity; again she seemed to see Hugh, passing up from the darkness into that pearly light which came stealing down from the crypt—­and she realised that this second kiss held also the anguish of parting, rather than the rapture of reunion.

Before she could question the meaning of this, Hugh released her, gently loosed her hands from about his neck, and led her to a seat.

Then he thrust his hand into his breast, and when he drew it forth she saw that he held something in his palm, which gleamed as the light fell upon it.

Standing before her, his eyes bent upon that which lay in his hand, Hugh spoke.

“Mora, I have to tell thee a strange tale, which will, I greatly fear, cause thee much sorrow and perplexity.  But first I would give thee this, sent to thee by the Bishop with his most loving greetings; who also bids me say that if, after my tale is told, thy choice should be to return to Worcester, he himself will meet thee, and welcome thee, conduct thee to the Nunnery and there reinstate thee Prioress of the White Ladies, with due pomp and highest honour.  I tell thee this at once to spare thee all I can of shock and anguish in the hearing of that which must follow.”

Kneeling before her, Hugh laid her jewelled cross of office on her lap.

“My wife,” he said simply, speaking very low, with bent head, “before I tell thee more I would have thee know thyself free to go back to the point where first thy course was guided by the vision of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony.  Therefore I bring thee thy cross of office as Prioress of the White Ladies.”

She laughed aloud, in the great gladness of her relief; in the rapture of her pride in him.

“How can thy wife be Prioress of the White Ladies?” she cried, and caught his head to her breast, there where the jewelled cross used to lie, raining tears and kisses on his hair.

For a moment he yielded, speaking, with his face pressed against her, words of love beyond her imagining.

Then he regained control.

“Oh, hush, my beloved!” he said.  “Hold me not!  Let me go, or our Lady knoweth I shall even now fail in the task which lies before me.”