"
She looked at him with searching gaze. The kind and gentle eyes of the
Bishop met hers without wavering; also without any trace of the
fire--the keen brightness--which had startled her as she stood in the
doorway.
"Reverend Father," she said, and there was a strange note of bewildered
question in her voice: "I pray you, tell me what you bid penitents to
remember as they kneel in prayer before the crucifix?"
The Bishop looked full into those starry grey eyes bent upon him, and
his own did not falter. His mild voice took on a shade of sternness as
befitted the solemn subject of her question.
"I tell them, my daughter, to remember, the sacred Wounds that bled and
the Heart that broke for them."
She drew her hands from beneath his, and stepped back a pace.
"The Heart that broke?" she said. "That _broke_? Do hearts break?"
she cried. "Nay, rather, they turn to stone." She laughed wildly,
then caught her breath. The Knight had entered the hall.
With free, glad step, and head uplifted, Hugh d'Argent came to them,
where they stood.
"My Lord Bishop," he said, "you have been too good to us. I sent Mora
on alone that she might find you here, not telling her who was the
prelate who had so graciously offered to wed us, knowing how much it
would mean to her that it should be you, Reverend Father."
"Gladly am I here for that purpose, my son," replied the Bishop,
"having as you know, the leave and sanction of His Holiness for so
doing.
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