"Dear Knight," she said, softly, a wistful tenderness in her voice, "I suppose I loved you, as a girl loves the man who has won her."
"Mora," said Hugh, "I have something to tell thee."
"I listen," she said.
"My wife—so wholly, so completely, do I love thee, that I would not consciously keep anything from thee. So deeply do I love thee, that I would sooner any wrong or sin of mine were known to thee and by thee forgiven, than that thou shouldest think me one whit better than I am."
He paused.
Her eyes were tender and compassionate. Often she had listened, with a patient heart of charity, to the tedious, morbid, self-centred confessions of kneeling nuns, who watched with anxious eyes for the sign which would mean that they might clutch at the hem of her robe and press it to their lips in token that they were forgiven.
But she had had no experience of the sins of men. What had the "splendid Knight" upon his conscience, which must now be told her, in this sunny arbour, on the morning of their bridal day?
Her heart throbbed painfully. Alas, it was still the heart of a nun. It would not be controlled. Must she hear wild tales of wickedness and shame, of which she would but partly understand the meaning?
Oh, for the calm of the Cloister! Oh, for the sheltered purity of her quiet cell!
Yet his eyes, still meeting hers, were clear and fearless.