ost unconscious that she did so, Mora
broke the seals. Then paused, even as she began to unfold the
parchment, questioning whether to read it or to let it await Hugh's
return.

But not long did she hesitate. It was upon a matter which closely
concerned her. That much Hugh had admitted. It might be imperative to
take immediate action concerning this first letter, which by so strange
a mishap had arrived after the other. Unless she mastered its
contents, she could not act.

Ascending the turret stairway, Mora stepped again on to the battlements.

The golden ramparts in the west had faded; but a blood-red banner still
floated above the horizon. The sky overhead was clear.

Sitting upon the seat on which she had sat while telling Hugh of old
Mary Antony's most blessed and wondrous vision, Mora unfolded and read
the Bishop's letter.

CHAPTER XLIX

TWICE DECEIVED

The blood-red banner had drooped, dipped, and vanished.

The sky overhead had deepened to purple, and opened starry eyes upon
the world beneath. Each time the silent woman, alone upon the
battlements, lifted a sorrowful face to the heavens, yet another bright
eye seemed to spring wide and gaze down upon her.

At length the whole expanse of the sky was studded with stars; the
planets hung luminous; the moon, already waning, rose large and golden
from behind the firs, growing smaller and more silvery as she mounted
higher.

Mora covered her face with her hands. The summer night was too full of
scented sweetness. The stars sang together. The moon rode triumphant
in the heavens. In this her hour of darkness she must shut out the
brilliant sky. She let her face sink into her hands, and bowed her
head upon her knees.

Blow after blow had fallen upon her from the Bishop's letter.

First that the Bishop himself was plotting to deceive her, and seemed
to take Hugh's connivance for granted.

Then that she had been hoodwinked by old Mary Antony, on the evening of
Hugh's intrusion into the Nunnery; that this hoodwinking was known to
the Bishop, and appeared but to cause him satisfaction, tempered by a
faint amusement.

Then the overwhelming news that Mary Antony's vision had been an
imposition, devised and contrived by the almost uncannily shrewd wits
of the old woman; and that the Bishop advised the Knight to praise
heaven for those wits, and to beware lest any chance word of his should
lead her--Mora--to doubt the genuineness of the vision