The Bishop sat looking into the fire.  A faint smile flickered at the corners of the sensitive mouth.  The fights he had fought for the woman he loved had been of sterner quality than the mere crossing of knightly swords.

Hugh d’Argent spoke again.

“Profoundly do I thank you, Reverend Father, for all that you have done; and even more, for that which you did not do.  It was six years after her first sojourn at the Court that I met Mora, loved her, and won her; and well I know that the sweet love she gave to me was a love from which no man had brushed the bloom.”

Hugh paused.

Those kindly and very luminous eyes were still bent upon the fire.  Was the Bishop finding it hard to face the fact that his life’s secret had now, by his own act, passed into the keeping of another?

Hugh moved a pace nearer.

“And deeply do I love you, Reverend Father, for your wondrous goodness to her, and—­for her sake—­to me.  And I pray heaven,” added Hugh d’Argent simply, “that if she come to me, she may never know that she once won the love of so greatly better a man than he who won hers.”

With which the Knight dropped upon one knee, and humbly kissed the hem of the Bishop’s robe.

Symon of Worcester was greatly moved.

“My son,” he said, “we are at one in desiring her happiness and highest good.  For the rest, God, and her own pure heart, must guide her feet into the way of peace.”

The Bishop rose, and went to the casement.

“The aurora breaks in the east.  The dawn is near.  Come with me, Hugh, to the chapel.  We pray for His Holiness, giving thanks for his gracious letter and mandate; we praise for the safe return of my messenger.  But we will also offer up devout petition that the Prioress may have clear light at this parting of the ways, and that our enterprise may be brought to a happy conclusion.”

So, presently, in the dimly-lighted chapel, the Knight knelt alone; while, away at the high altar, remote, wrapt, absorbed in the supreme act of his priestly office, stood the Bishop, celebrating mass.

Yet one anxious prayer ascended from the hearts of both.

And, in the pale dawn of that new day, the woman for whom both the Knight and the Bishop prayed, kept vigil in her cell, before the shrine of the Madonna.

“Blessed Virgin,” she said; “thou who lovedst Saint Joseph, being betrothed to him, yet didst keep thyself an holy shrine consecrate to the Lord and His need of thee—­oh, grant unto me strength to put from me this constant torment at the thought of his sufferings to whom once I gave my troth, and to reconsecrate myself wholly to the service of my Lord.”

Thus these three knelt, as a new day dawned.

And the Knight prayed:  “Give her to me!”

And the Bishop prayed:  “Guide her feet into the way of peace.”

And the Prioress, with hands crossed upon her breast and eyes uplifted, said:  “Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee.”