Yet the “Prioress” fell from her, as she closed the panel.  It was the Woman and the Saint who moved over to the window and stood beside the Knight, in the radiance of a golden sunset after storm.

There was about her, as she spoke, a wistful humbleness; and a patient sadness, infinitely touching.

“Sir Hugh,” she said, “my dear Knight, whom I ever found brave and tender, and whom I now know to have been always loyal and true—­there is no need that I should add a word to your recital.  The facts you wrung from Alfrida—­God grant forgiveness to that tormented heart—­are all true.  Believing the messenger, not dreaming of doubting Eleanor, my one thought was to hide from the world my broken heart, my shattered pride.  I hastened to offer to God the love and the life which had been slighted by man.  I confess this has since seemed to me but a poor second-best to have brought to Him, Who indeed should have our very best.  But, daily kneeling at His Feet, I said:  ’A broken and a contrite heart, Lord, Thou wilt not despise.’  My heart was ‘broken,’ when I brought it here.  It has been ‘contrite’ since.  And well I know, although so far from worthy, it has not been despised.”

She lifted her eyes to the golden glory behind the battlements of purple cloud.

“Our blessed Lady interceded,” she said, simply; “she, who understands a woman’s heart.”

The Knight was breathing hard.  The folded arms rose and fell, with the heaving of his chest.  But he kept his lips firm shut; though praying, all the while, that our Lady might have, also, some understanding of the heart of a man!

“I think it right that you should know, dear Hugh,” went on the sad voice, gently; “that, at first, I suffered greatly.  I spent long agonizing nights, kneeling before our Lady’s shrine, imploring strength to conquer the love and the longing which had become sin.”

A stifled groan broke from the Knight.

The golden light shone in her steadfast eyes, and played about her noble brow.

“And strength was given,” she said, very low.

“Mora!” cried the Knight—­She started.  It was so long since she had heard her own name—­“You prayed for strength to conquer, when you thought it sin; just as I rode out to meet the foe, to fight and slay, and afterward wrestled with unknown tongues, doing all those things which were hardest, while striving to quench my love for you.  But when I knew that no other man had right to you or ever had had right, why then I found that nothing had slain my love, nor ever could.  And Mora, now you know that I am free, is your love dead?”

She clasped her hands over the cross at her breast.  His voice held a deep passion of appeal; yet he strove, loyally, to keep it calm.

“Listen, Hugh,” she said.  “If, thinking me faithless, you had turned for consolation to another; if, though you brought her but your second best, you yet had won and wed her; now, finding after all that I had not wedded Humphry, would you leave your bride, and try to wake again your love for me?”