With long hours of prayer and vigil, have I sought to purge my soul from the stain of a weak yielding--even for 'a moment'-- to the masterful insistence of this man, who forced himself, by the subterfuge of a sacrilegious masquerade, into the sacred precincts of our Nunnery.

I know not whom he bribed"-- continued the Prioress, flashing an indignant glance of suspicion at the Bishop.
"'Love thinking no evil,'" murmured Symon of Worcester.
"But I do know, that somebody in high authority must have connived at his plotting, or he could not have found himself alone in the crypt at the hour of Vespers, in such wise as to assume our dress and, mingling with the returning procession, gain entrance to the cloisters.

And somebody must still be aiding and abetting his plans, or he could not be, as he himself told me he would be, daily in the crypt alone, during the hour when we pass to and from the clerestory.

It angers me, my lord, to think that one who should, in this, be on my side, taketh part against me." "'Is not easily provoked,'" quoted the Bishop.
"In fact I am tempted, my lord," said the Prioress, rising to her feet, tall and indignant, "I am almost tempted, my Lord Bishop, to forget the reverence which I owe to your high office----" "'Doth not behave itself unseemly,'" murmured Symon of Worcester, putting on his biretta.
The Prioress turned her back upon the Bishop, and walked over to the window.

She was so angry that she felt the tears stinging beneath her eyelids; yet at the same time she experienced a most incongruous desire to kneel down beside that beautiful and dignified figure, rest her head against the Bishop's knees, and pour out the cruel tale of conflicts, uncertainties and strivings, temptations and hard-won victories, which, had lately made up the sum of her nights and days.