Yet Mora knew the truth.

Would her kind hands deal him so base a blow?
The Bishop saw the brooding rage in the Knight's eyes, and he lowered his own to the letter, in time to hide their twinkling.
Even the best and bravest of Knights, for having forced his way into a Nunnery, pressed a suit upon a nun, and escaped unscathed, deserved some punishment at the hands of the Church! "Which was generous in the Reverend Mother," said the Bishop, "since she was inclined, upon the whole, to disapprove this offering of liberty to the restless nun.

You can well understand that, the responsibility for the good conduct of that entire Community resting upon the Prioress, she is bound to regard with disfavour any innovation which might tend to provoke a scandal." The Bishop did not look up, or he would have seen dull despair displacing the Knight's anger.
"However she appears faithfully to have laid before Sister Mary Seraphine, my view of the matter, giving her to understand that I am inclined to be lenient concerning vows made under misapprehension; also that, when there is not a true vocation, and a worldly spirit chafes against the cloistered life, I regard its presence within the Community as more likely to be harmful to the common weal, than the short-lived scandal which might arise if those in power should connive at an escape." The Knight moved impatiently in his seat.
"Could we arrive, my lord," he said, "at the Lady Prioress's message, of which you spoke ?" "We are tending thither, my son," replied the Bishop, unruffled.

"Curb your impatience.

We of the Cloister are wont to move slowly, with measured tread--each step a careful following up of the step which went before--not with the leaps and bounds and capers of the laity.