another of his
bride. If I had wed another woman, I should have done that thing,
honestly believing thee the wife of another man. But, all these years,
while thou and I were both deceived, He, Who knoweth all, has known the
truth. He knew thee betrothed to me. He heard thee say, upon the
battlements, when last we stood together: 'God knows, I am all thine
own.' He knew how, when I thought I had lost thee, I yet lived
faithful to the pure memory of our love. The day thy vows were made,
He knew that I was free, and thou, therefore, still pledged to me.
Shall a man rob God? Ay, he may. But shall God rob a man? Nay, then,
never!"

She trembled, wavered; then fled to the shrine of the Virgin, kneeling
with hands outstretched.

"Holy Mother of God," she sobbed, "teach him that I dare not do this
thing! Shew him that I cannot break my vows. Help him to understand
that I would not, if I could."

He followed, and kneeled beside her; his proud head bent; his voice
breaking with emotion.

"Blessed Virgin," he said. "Thou who didst dwell in the earthly home
at Nazareth, help this woman of mine to understand, that if she break
her troth to me, holding herself from me, now when I am come to claim
her, she sends me forth to an empty life, to a hearth beside which no
woman will sit, to a home forever desolate."

Together they knelt, before the tender image of Mother and Child;
together, yet apart; he, loyally mindful not so much as to brush
against a fold of her veil.

The dark face, and the fair, were lifted, side by side, as they knelt
before the Madonna. For a while so motionless they kneeled, they might
have been finely-modelled figures; he, bronze; she, marble.

Then, with a sudden movement, she put out her right hand, and caught
his left.

Firmly his fingers closed over hers; but he drew no nearer.

Yet as they knelt thus with clasped hands, his pulsing life seemed to
flow through her, undoing, in one wild, sweet moment, the work of years
of fast and vigil.

"Ah, Hugh," she cried, suddenly, "spare me! Spare me! Tempt me not!"

Loosing her hand from his, she clasped both upon her breast.

The Knight rose, and stood beside her.

"Mora," he said, and his voice held a new tone, a tone of sadness and
solemnity; "far be it from me to tempt you. I will plead with you but
once again, in presence of our Lady and of the Holy Child; and, having
so done, I will say no more.

"I ask you to leave this place,