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CHAPTER LI
TWO NOBLE HEARTS GO DIFFERENT WAYS
On that same afternoon, an hour before sunset, the two men who loved
Mora faced one another, for a final farewell.
The Bishop had said all he had to say. Without interruption, his words
had flowed steadily on; eloquent, logical, conciliatory, persuasive.
At first he had talked to the top of the Knight's head, to the clenched
hands, to the arms outstretched across the table.
He had wondered what thoughts were at work beneath the crisp thickness
of that dark hair. He had wished the rigid attitude of tense despair
might somewhat relax. He had used the most telling inflexions of his
persuasive voice in order to bring this about, but without success. He
had wished the Knight would break silence, even to rage or to disagree.
To that end he had cast as a bait an intentional slip in a statement of
facts; and, later on, a palpable false deduction in a weighty argument.
But the Knight had not risen to either.
After a while Hugh had lifted his head, and leaned back in his chair;
fixing his eyes, in his turn, upon the banner hanging from the rafters.
It had ceased to wave gently to and fro. Probably Father Benedict had
closed the trap-door, concealed behind an upright beam, through which
he was wont to peer down into the banqueting hall below, in order to
satisfy himself that all was well and that the Reverend Father needed
naught.
Let it be here recorded that this exceeding vigilance, on the part of
Father Benedict, met with but scant reward.
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