the Prioress, the
Bishop believed, in his secret heart, that the age of miracles was past.

One so fixed in her determination, so persistent in her assertion, so
loud in her asseveration, would scarce be likely to hear the inward
whisperings of Divine suggestion.

Therefore, should our Lady intervene with clear guidance, that
intervention must be miraculous. And the Bishop sighing, said: "Alas,
poor Hugh!"

His eye fell upon the fragments of rent vellum on the floor. He held
out his hand.

The Prioress gathered up the fragments, and placed them in the Bishop's
outstretched hand.

"Alas, my lord," she said, "you were witness of my grievous sin in thus
rending the gracious message of His Holiness. Will it please you to
appoint me a penance, if such an act can indeed be expiated?"

"The sin, my daughter, as I will presently explain, is scarcely so
great as you think it. But, such as it is, it arose from a lack of
calmness and of that mental equipoise which sails unruffled through a
sea of contradiction. The irritability which results in displays of
sudden temper is so foreign to your nature that it points to your
having passed through a time of very special strain, both mental and
physical; probably overlong vigils and fastings, while you wrestled
with this anxious problem upon which so much, in the future, depends.

"As you ask me for penance, I will give you two: one which will set
right your ill-considered action; the other which will help to remedy
the cause of that action.

"The first is, that you place these fragments together and, taking a
fresh piece of vellum, make a careful copy of this writing which you
destroyed.

"The second is that, in order to regain the usual equipoise of your
mental attitude, you ride to-day, for an hour, in the river meadow. My
white palfrey, Iconoklastes, shall be in the courtyard at noon.
Yesterday, my daughter, you rode for pleasure. To-day you will ride
for penance; and incidentally"--an irrepressible little smile crept
round the corners of the Bishop's mouth, and twinkled in his
eyes--"incidentally, my daughter, you will work off a certain stiffness
from which you must be suffering, after the unwonted exercise. Ah me!"
said the Bishop, "that is ever the Divine method. Punishments should
be remedial, as well as deterrent. There is much stiffness of mind of
which we must be rid before we can stoop to the portal of God's
'whosoever' and, passing through the narrow