CHAPTER LI.
TWO NOBLE HEARTS GO DIFFERENT WAYS On that same afternoon, an hour before sunset, the two men who loved Mora faced one another, for a final farewell.
The Bishop had said all he had to say.

Without interruption, his words had flowed steadily on; eloquent, logical, conciliatory, persuasive.
At first he had talked to the top of the Knight's head, to the clenched hands, to the arms outstretched across the table.
He had wondered what thoughts were at work beneath the crisp thickness of that dark hair.

He had wished the rigid attitude of tense despair might somewhat relax.

He had used the most telling inflexions of his persuasive voice in order to bring this about, but without success.

He had wished the Knight would break silence, even to rage or to disagree.
To that end he had cast as a bait an intentional slip in a statement of facts; and, later on, a palpable false deduction in a weighty argument.
But the Knight had not risen to either.
After a while Hugh had lifted his head, and leaned back in his chair; fixing his eyes, in his turn, upon the banner hanging from the rafters.
It had ceased to wave gently to and fro.