The Bishop knelt long in prayer and thanksgiving. At length, with
uplifted face, he said: "And grant, O my God, that I too may be
faithful, unto the very end."
Then he rose, and rang the Convent bell.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE "SPLENDID KNIGHT"
On the steps of Warwick Castle stood the Knight and his bride.
Their eyes still lingered on the archway through which the noble figure
of Symon, Bishop of Worcester, mounted upon his black mare, Shulamite,
had just disappeared from view.
The marriage had taken place in the Castle chapel, half an hour before,
with an astonishing amount of pomp and ceremony. Priests and acolytes
had appeared from unexpected places. Madonna lilies, on graceful stem,
gleamed white in the shadows of the sacred place. Solemn music rose
and fell; the deep roll of the Gregorian chants, beginning with a low
hum as of giant bees in a vast field of clover; swelling, in
full-throated unison, a majestic volume of sound which rang against the
rafters, waking echoes in the clerestory; then rumbling back into
silence.
Standing beneath the sacred canopy, the bridal pair lifted their eyes
to the high altar and saw, amid a cloud of incense, the Bishop, in
gorgeous vestments, descending the steps and coming toward them.
To Mora, at the time, and afterwards in most thankful remembrance, the
wonder of that which followed lay in the fact that where she had
dreaded an inevitable sense of sacrilege in giving to another that
which had been already consecrated to God, the Bishop so worded the
service as to make her feel that she could still be spiritually the
bride of Christ, even while fulfilling her troth to Hugh; also that, in
accepting the call to this new Vocation, she was not falling from her
old estate, but rather rising above it.
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