He took those folded hands in his, gently parted them, and held them against the cross upon his heart.
"You have chosen rightly, my child," he said; "we will pray that grace and strength may be vouchsafed you, so that you may continue, without faltering, along the pathway of this fresh vocation."
She looked at him with searching gaze. The kind and gentle eyes of the Bishop met hers without wavering; also without any trace of the fire—the keen brightness—which had startled her as she stood in the doorway.
"Reverend Father," she said, and there was a strange note of bewildered question in her voice: "I pray you, tell me what you bid penitents to remember as they kneel in prayer before the crucifix?"
The Bishop looked full into those starry grey eyes bent upon him, and his own did not falter. His mild voice took on a shade of sternness as befitted the solemn subject of her question.
"I tell them, my daughter, to remember, the sacred Wounds that bled and the Heart that broke for them."
She drew her hands from beneath his, and stepped back a pace.
"The Heart that broke?" she said. "That broke? Do hearts break?" she cried. "Nay, rather, they turn to stone." She laughed wildly, then caught her breath. The Knight had entered the hall.
With free, glad step, and head uplifted, Hugh d'Argent came to them, where they stood.
"My Lord Bishop," he said, "you have been too good to us. I sent Mora on alone that she might find you here, not telling her who was the prelate who had so graciously offered to wed us, knowing how much it would mean to her that it should be you, Reverend Father."