Also, she had come of her own free will.

The foot which had dared to stamp upon the torn fragments of the Pope's mandate, had, with an equal courage, stepped aside from the way of convention and had brought her within the compass of his arms.
He could not put her from him.

She was his to hold and keep.

But she was his also to shield and guard; aye, to shield not from outward dangers only, but from anything in himself which might cause her pain or perplexity, thus making more difficult her noble act of self-surrender.
Words spoken by the Bishop, in the banqueting hall, came back to him with fuller significance.
A joy arose within him, deeper far than the rapture of passion; the joy of a faithful patience, of a strong man's mastery over the strongest thing in himself, of a lover's comprehension, by sure instinct, of that which no words, however clear and forcible, could have succeeded in making plain.
His love arose, a kingly thing, crowned by her trust in him.
As he folded back the cloak, he stood with eyes uplifted to the arched roof above his head.

And the vision he saw, in the dim pearly light, was a vision of the Madonna in his home.
The shelter of the cloak removed, the Prioress looked around with startled eyes, full of an unspeakable shrinking; then upward to the face of her lover, and saw it transfigured by the light of holy purpose and of a great resolve.
But, even as she looked, he took his arm from about her, stepped a pace forward, leaving her in the shadow, and whistled thrice the _Do-it-now_ call of the thrush.
Instantly the men-at-arms leapt to their feet, and making quickly for the entrance to the Cathedral from the crypt, stood to hold it from without, against all comers.
As their running feet rang on the steps, softly there sounded through the crypt the plaintive call of the curlew.
The man lying upon the stretcher rose, leaving his bandages behind; and, without glancing to right or left, passed quickly in and out amongst the forest of columns, and was lost to view.