But, as he watched the swiftly moving river, he found himself wishing that his task had been to strengthen, rather than to weaken; to gird up and brace, rather than subtly to unbuckle and disarm.

Yet by so doing, would he not have been ensuring his own happiness, bringing back the joy of life to his own heart, at the expense of the two whom he had given to be each other's in the Name of the Divine Trinity?
If Hugh persisted in his folly, he would lose his bride, yet would the Bishop meet and reinstate the Prioress with a clear conscience, having striven to the very last to dissuade the Knight.
If, on the other hand, Hugh, growing wiser as he rode northward, decided to keep silence, why then the sunny land he loved, and the Cardinal's office, for Symon, Bishop of Worcester.
But meanwhile, two weeks of uncertainty; and the Bishop could not abide uncertainty.
He turned from the river and began to pace the lawn slowly from end to end, his head bent, his hands clasped behind him.
Each time he reached the wall between the garden and the courtyard, he found himself confronted by two rose trees, a red and a white, climbing so near together that their branches intertwined, crimson blooms resting their rich petals against the fragrant fairness of their white neighbours.
Presently these roses became symbolic to the Bishop--the white, of the fair presence of the Prioress; the red, of the high honour awaiting him in Rome.
He was seized by the whimsical idea that, were he to close his eyes, beseech the blessed Saint Joseph to guide his hand, take three steps forward, and pluck the first blossom his fingers touched, he might put an end to this tiresome uncertainty.
But he smiled at the childishness of the fancy.

It savoured of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, playing with her peas and confiding in her robin.

Moreover the Bishop never did anything with his eyes shut.

He would have slept with them open, had not Nature decreed otherwise.
Once again he paced the full length of the lawn, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes looking beyond the river to the distant hills.
"Will she come, or shall I go?
Shall I depart, or will she return ?" As he turned at the parapet, a voice seemed to whisper with insistence: "A white rose for her pure presence in the Cloister.