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Updated: May 5, 2025
"Most worshipful Knight," said the old man, with deference, "our Lord Bishop's mandate supersedes all rules. Were it not so, it would be my duty to clear the crypt before Vespers. See you that stairway yonder, beneath the arch? Not many minutes hence, up those steps will pass the holy nuns from the Convent of the White Ladies at Whytstone noble ladies all, and of great repute for saintliness.
The Palace stood on the same side of the Cathedral as the main street of the city, in the direct route to the Foregate, the Tithing, and the White Ladies' Nunnery at Whytstone. How strange to remember, that beneath him lay that mile-long walk in darkness; that just under the Palace, so near the Cathedral, she and he, pacing together, had known the end of their strange pilgrimage to be at hand.
Earnestly he looked upon her, striving to see in her the Prioress of Whytstone the friend of all these happy, peaceful, blessèd years. But the Prioress had vanished. Mora de Norelle stood before him, taller by half a head than he, flushed by long galloping in the night breeze; nerves strung to breaking point; eyes bright with the great unrest of a headlong leap into a new world.
"I returned to England not long after your betrothed had entered the cloistered life in the Whytstone Nunnery. I was appointed to this See of Worcester, which appointment gave me the spiritual control of the White Ladies. My friendship with the Prioress has been a source of interest, pleasure, and true helpfulness to myself and I trust to her also.
Constant devout contemplation of the Supreme Sorrow which wrought the world's salvation lessens the inclination to shed tears of self-pity. The Prioress was startled and alarmed by the pathetic sobs of Sister Seraphine. This young nun had but lately been sent on to the Nunnery at Whytstone from a convent at Tewkesbury in which she had served her novitiate, and taken her final vows.
Yet it was clear and unmistakable a dispensation, signed and sealed by the Pope, releasing Mora, Countess of Norelle, from all vows and promises taken and made when she entered the Nunnery of the White Ladies of Worcester, at Whytstone, in the parish of dairies, and later on when she became Prioress of that same Nunnery; and furthermore stating that this full absolution was granted because it had been brought to the knowledge of His Holiness that this noble lady had entered the cloistered life owing to a wicked and malicious plot designed to wrest her castle and estates from her, and also to part her from a valiant Knight, at that time fighting in the Holy Wars, to whom she was betrothed.
The stretcher, borne by four men-at-arms, passed out from the Cathedral. The Knight walked beside it, with bent head, and eyes upon the ground. As it passed through the Precincts, the Lord Bishop himself rode out on his white palfrey, on his way to the Nunnery at Whytstone. The Knight, being downhearted, did not lift his eyes.
She had not reached her twenty-fifth year when, fleeing from the world, she joined the Order of the White Ladies of Worcester, and passed into the seclusion and outward calm of the Nunnery at Whytstone. Five years later, on the death of the aged Prioress, she was elected, by a large majority, to fill the vacant place. She had now, during two years, ruled the Nunnery wisely and well.
It was upon the second day after the Bishop's conversation with the Prioress in the Convent at Whytstone; the evening of the Nun's Play Day, granted in honour of his visit. The Bishop and the Knight supped together, with much stately ceremony, in the great banqueting hall.
Daily they went, and daily they returned, by the underground way, a passage over a mile in length, leading from the Nunnery of the White Ladies at Whytstone in Claines, to the Church of St. Mary and St. Peter, the noble Cathedral within the walls of the city of Worcester.
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