Let your consolation now be the knowledge that she also was faithful, and that it is a double faithfulness which keeps her from responding to the call of your love.

Seek union with her on the spiritual plane, and some day--in the Realm where all noble things shall attain unto full perfection--you may yet give thanks that your love was not allowed to pass through the perilous pitfalls of an earthly union." The Knight looked at the delicate face of the Bishop, with its wistful smile, its charm of extreme refinement.
Yes! Here spoke the Prelate, the Idealist, the Mystic.
But the Knight was a man and a lover.
His dark face flushed, and his eyes grew bright with inward fires such as the Bishop could hardly be expected to understand.
"I want not spiritual planes," he said, "nor realms of perfection.

I want my own wife, in my own home; and, could I have won her there, I have not much doubt but that I could have lifted her over any perilous pitfalls that came in her way." "True, my son," said the Bishop, at once gently acquiescent; for Symon of Worcester invariably yielded a point which had been misunderstood.
For over-rating a mind with which he conversed, this was ever his self-imposed penance.

"Your great strength would be fully equal to lifting ladies over pitfalls.

Which recalls to my mind a scene in this day's events, which I would fain describe to you before we part.".