Rest there in silence, while I work at my missal." She had passed to the table; and the Bishop had sat resting, just as he was sitting now, save that his eyes could then dwell on her face, as she bent, absorbed, over the illumination.
After a while he had asked: "How knew you that I was tired, my dear Prioress ?" Without lifting her eyes, she had made answer: "Because, my Lord Bishop, you twice smiled when there was no occasion for smiling." Another period of restful silence, while she worked, and he watched her working.

Then he had remarked: "My friends say I am never tired." And she had answered: "They would speak more truly if they said that you are ever brave." It had amazed the Bishop to find himself thus understood.

Moreover he could scarce put on his biretta, so crowned was his head by the laurels of her praise.

Also this had been the only time when he had wondered whether the Prioress really believed Father Gervaise to be at the bottom of the ocean.

It is ever an astonishment to a man when the unerring intuition of a woman is brought to bear upon himself.
Now, in this hour of his overwhelming fatigue, he recalled that scene.
Closing his eyes on the distant view, and opening them upon the enchanted vistas of memory, he speedily saw that calm face, with its chastened expression of fine self-control, bending above the page she was illuminating.