CHAPTER LVII.
"I CHOOSE TO RIDE ALONE" Mora escaped from the restraining arms of old Debbie, and appeared at the top of the steps leading down to the courtyard.
Framed in the doorway, in her green riding dress, she stood for a moment, surveying the scene before her.
The two men bound for Worcester, bearing her packet to the Bishop, had just ridden out at the great gates.

Through the gates, still standing open, she could see them guiding their horses down the hill and taking the southward road.
The porter was attempting to close the gates, but a stable lad hindered him, pointing to Icon, whom a groom was leading, ready saddled, to and fro, before the door; Icon, with proudly arched neck and swishing tail, as conscious of his snowy beauty as when, in the river meadow at Worcester, he found himself the centre of an admiring crowd of nuns.
At sight of his flowing mane, powerful forequarters, and high stepping action, Mora was irresistibly reminded of the scene in the courtyard at the Nunnery, when the Bishop rode in on his favourite white palfrey, she standing at the top of the steps to receive him.

Never again would she stand so, to receive the Bishop; never again would Icon proudly carry him.

The Bishop had given her to Hugh and Icon to her.

A faint sense of compunction stirred within her.