tly.

But the Prioress had regained command over herself, and the gentle
words were to her a challenge. She donned, forthwith, the breastplate
of holy resolve, and drew her sword.

"My Lord Bishop, you have wrung from me a confession of my love; but in
so doing, you have wrung from me a confession of sin. A nun may not
yield to such love as Hugh d'Argent still desires to win from me. With
long hours of prayer and vigil, have I sought to purge my soul from the
stain of a weak yielding--even for 'a moment'--to the masterful
insistence of this man, who forced himself, by the subterfuge of a
sacrilegious masquerade, into the sacred precincts of our Nunnery. I
know not whom he bribed"--continued the Prioress, flashing an indignant
glance of suspicion at the Bishop.

"'Love thinking no evil,'" murmured Symon of Worcester.

"But I do know, that somebody in high authority must have connived at
his plotting, or he could not have found himself alone in the crypt at
the hour of Vespers, in such wise as to assume our dress and, mingling
with the returning procession, gain entrance to the cloisters. And
somebody must still be aiding and abetting his plans, or he could not
be, as he himself told me he would be, daily in the crypt alone, during
the hour when we pass to and from the clerestory. It angers me, my
lord, to think that one who should, in this, be on my side, taketh part
against me."

"'Is not easily provoked,'" quoted the Bishop.

"In fact I am tempted, my lord," said the Prioress, rising to her feet,
tall and indignant, "I am almost tempted, my Lord Bishop, to forget the
reverence which I owe to your high office----"

"'Doth not behave itself unseemly,'" murmured Symon of Worcester,
putting on his biretta.

The Prioress turned her back upon the Bishop, and walked over to the
window. She was so angry that she felt the tears stinging beneath her
eyelids; yet at the same time she experienced a most incongruous desire
to kneel down beside that beautiful and dignified figure, rest her head
against the Bishop's knees, and pour out the cruel tale of conflicts,
uncertainties and strivings, temptations and hard-won victories, which,
had lately made up the sum of her nights and days. He had been her
trusted friend and counsellor during all these years. Yet now she knew
him arrayed against her, and she feared him more than she feared Hugh.
Hugh wrestled with her feelings; and, on the plane of the senses, she
knew h