shop knew, of a sudden, that he had failed;
that the Knight had failed; that the all-powerful pronouncement from
the Vatican had failed.

The woman and her conscience held the field.

Having conquered her own love, having mastered her own natural yearning
for her lover, she would overcome with ease all other assailants.

In two days' time Hugh would ride away alone. Unless a miracle
happened, Mora would not be with him.

The Bishop faced defeat as he looked into those clear eyes, fearless
even in their sorrowful humility.

"Oh, child," he said, "you love Hugh! Can you let him ride forth
alone, accompanied only by the grim spectres of unfaith and of despair?
His hope, his faith, his love, all centre in you. Another Prioress can
be found for this Nunnery. No other bride can be found for Hugh
d'Argent. He will have his own betrothed, or none."

Still kneeling, the Prioress threw back her head, looking upward, with
clasped hands.

"Reverend Father," she said, "I will not go to the man I love, trailing
broken vows, like chains, behind me. There could be no harmony in
life's music. Whene'er I moved, where'er I trod, I should hear the
constant clanking of those chains. No man can set me free from vows
made to God. But----"

The Prioress paused, looking past the Bishop at the gracious figure of
the Madonna. She had remembered, of a sudden, how Hugh had knelt
there, saying: "Blessed Virgin . . . 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 out to an empty life, to
a hearth beside which no woman will sit, to a home forever desolate."

"But?" said the Bishop, leaning forward. "Yes, my daughter? But?"

"But if our blessed Lady herself vouchsafed me a clear sign that my
first duty is to Hugh, if she absolved me from my vows, making it
evident that God's will for me is that, leaving the Cloister, I should
wed Hugh and dwell with him in his home; then I would strive to bring
myself to do this thing. But I can take release from none save from
our Lord, to Whom those vows were made, or from our Lady, who knoweth
the heart of a woman, and whose grace hath been with me all through the
strivings and conflicts of the years that are past."

The Bishop sighed. "Alas," he said; "alas, poor Hugh!"

For that our Lady should vouchsafe a clear sign, would have to be a
miracle; and, though he would not have admitted it to