The Bishop opened tired eyes, and fixed them once again upon the
landscape.
He supposed the long rides on two successive days had exhausted him
physically; and the strain of securing and ensuring the safety and
happiness of the woman who was dearer to him than life, had reacted now
in a mental lassitude which seemed unable to rise up and face the
prospect of the lonely years to come.
The thought of her as now with the Knight, did not cause him suffering.
His one anxiety was lest anything unforeseen should arise, to prevent
the full fruition of their happiness.
He had never loved her as a man loves the woman he would wed;--at
least, if that side of his love had attempted to arise, it had
instantly been throttled and flung back.
It seemed to him that, from the very beginning he had ever loved her as
Saint Joseph must have loved the maiden intrusted to his keeping--his,
yet not his; called, in the inspired dream, "Mary, thy wife"; but so
called only that he might have the right to guard and care for her--she
who was shrine of the Holiest, o'ershadowed by the power of the
Highest; Mother of God, most blessed Virgin forever.
It seemed to the Bishop that his joy in watching over Mora, since his
appointment to the See of Worcester, had been such as Saint Joseph
could well have understood; and now he had accomplished the supreme
thing; and, in so doing, had left himself desolate.
On the afternoon of the previous day, so soon as the body of the old
lay-sister had been removed from the Prioress's cell, the Bishop had
gathered together all those things which Mora specially valued and
which she had asked him to secure for her; mostly his gifts to her.
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