Almost, he and this fearsome nun had arrived at Warwick, and she was lifting a swollen countenance to him that he might embrace it.
Yet Mora well knew that he had not come for any Seraphine! Mora might deny herself to him; but she would not foist another upon him.

Only, alas! this grave and Reverend Prioress of whom the Bishop spoke, hardly seemed one with the woman of his desire; she who, but three evenings before, had yielded her lips to his, clasping her arms around him; loving, even while she denied him.
The Bishop's eyes were again upon the letter.
"The Prioress," he said, "with her usual instinctive sense of the helpfulness of outward surroundings, and desiring, with a fine justice, to give Seraphine--and her lover--every possible advantage, arranged that the conversation should take place in the Nunnery garden, in a secluded spot where they could not be overheard, yet where the sunshine glinted, through overhanging branches, flecking, in golden patches, the soft turf; where birds carolled, and spread swift wings; where white clouds chased one another across the blue sky; in fact, my son," said the Bishop, suddenly looking up, "where all Nature sang aloud of liberty and nonrestraint." The Knight's eyes, frowning from beneath a shading hand, were gloomy and full of sombre fury.
It mattered not to him in what surroundings this preposterous offer, that she should leave the Convent and fly with him to Warwick, had been made to Seraphine.

Her swollen countenance would be equally unattractive, whether lifted in cell or cloister, or where white clouds chased one another across the blue sky! The Knight felt as if he were being chased, and by something more to be feared than a white cloud.

Grim Nemesis pursued him.

This reverend prelate, whom he had deemed so wise, was well-nigh witless.