But now, knowing it to have been a sacrilegious fraud, every time you spoke with joy of the special grace, every time you blessed our Lady for her loving-kindness, I, by my silence, giving mute assent, should have committed sacrilege afresh.
Aye, and in that wondrous moment which you promised should soon come, when you would have said: 'Take me! I have been ever thine.

Our Lady hath kept me for thee!' mine honour would have been smirched forever had I, keeping silence, taken advantage of thy belief in words which that old nun had herself invented, and put into the mouth of the blessed Virgin.

The Bishop held me selfish because I put mine honour before my need of thee.

He said I saw naught but mine own proud face, in the bright mirror of my silver shield.

But"-- the Knight held his right hand aloft, and spoke in solemn tones--"methinks I see there the face of God, or the nearest I know to His face; and, behind Him, I see thy face, mine own beloved.