As the parchment crackled between the Bishop’s fingers, the Knight kept himself well in hand; but he prayed he might not have need to speak, nor to meet the Bishop’s eyes.  These—­the saints be praised—­were now intent upon the closely written page.

The light of the taper illumined the almost waxen whiteness of the gentle face, and gleamed upon the Bishop’s ring.  The Knight, fixing his eyes upon the stone, saw it the colour of red wine.

At last the Bishop began to speak with careful deliberation, his eyes upon the letter, yet telling, instead of reading; a method ofttimes maddening to an anxious listener, eager to snatch the parchment and master its contents for himself; yet who must perforce wait to receive them, with due patience, from another.

“The Prioress relates to me first of all a conversation she had, by my suggestion, with Sister Mary Serephine, in which she told that lady much of what passed between herself and me when she consulted me upon the apparent desire of this nun to escape from the Convent, renounce her vows, and return to her lover and the world—­her lover who had come to save her.”

The Bishop paused.

The Knight stirred uneasily in his seat.  A net seemed to be closing around him.  Almost he saw himself compelled to ride to Warwick in company with this most undesired and undesirable nun, Mary Seraphine.

The Bishop raised his eyes from the letter and looked pensively into the fire.

“A most piteous scene took place,” he said, “on the day when Sister Seraphine first heard again the call of the outer world.  Most moving it was, as told me by the Prioress.  The distraught nun lay upon the floor of her cell in an abandonment of frantic weeping.  She imitated the galloping of a horse with her hands and feet, a ride of some sort evidently being in her mind.  At length she lifted a swollen countenance, crying that her lover had come to save her.”

The Knight clenched his teeth, in despair.  Almost, he and this fearsome nun had arrived at Warwick, and she was lifting a swollen countenance to him that he might embrace it.

Yet Mora well knew that he had not come for any Seraphine!  Mora might deny herself to him; but she would not foist another upon him.  Only, alas! this grave and Reverend Prioress of whom the Bishop spoke, hardly seemed one with the woman of his desire; she who, but three evenings before, had yielded her lips to his, clasping her arms around him; loving, even while she denied him.

The Bishop’s eyes were again upon the letter.

“The Prioress,” he said, “with her usual instinctive sense of the helpfulness of outward surroundings, and desiring, with a fine justice, to give Seraphine—­and her lover—­every possible advantage, arranged that the conversation should take place in the Nunnery garden, in a secluded spot where they could not be overheard, yet where the sunshine glinted, through overhanging branches, flecking, in golden patches, the soft turf; where birds carolled, and spread swift wings; where white clouds chased one another across the blue sky; in fact, my son,” said the Bishop, suddenly looking up, “where all Nature sang aloud of liberty and nonrestraint.”