"
"I did not break my troth," said the Prioress, "until I believed that
Hugh had broken his. I had suffered sore anguish of heart and
humiliation of spirit, over the news of his marriage with his cousin
Alfrida, ere I resolved to renounce the world and enter the cloister."
"But Hugh did not wed his cousin, nor any other woman," said the
Bishop. "He was true to you in every thought and act, even after he
also had passed through sore anguish of heart by reason of your
supposed marriage with another suitor."
"I learned the truth but a few days since," said the Prioress. "For
seven long years I thought Hugh false to me. For seven long years I
believed him the husband of another woman, and schooled myself to
forget every memory of past tenderness."
"You were both deceived," said the Bishop. "You have both passed
through deep waters. You each owe it to the other to make all possible
reparation."
"For seven holy years," said the Prioress, firmly, "I have been the
bride of Christ."
"Do you love Hugh?" asked the Bishop.
There was silence in the chamber.
The Prioress desired, most fervently, to take her stand as one dead to
all earthly loves and desires. Yet each time she opened her lips to
reply, a fresh picture appeared in the mirror of her mental vision, and
closed them.
She saw herself, with hand outstretched, clasping Hugh's as they
kneeled together before the shrine of the Madonna. She could feel the
rush of pulsing life flow from his hand to the palm of hers, and so
upward to her poor numbed heart, making it beat its wings like a caged
bird.
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