business. It
affected a kind of spurious respectability, which was all on the
outside, for within it was as iniquitous a den as could well be
conceived, and was usually filled with horse-copers and sporting
characters, who made bets, and talked racing, and rode or drove fiery
steeds, and who lived on, and swindled through, the noblest of all
animals. Mr Mosk, a lean light-weight, who wore loud check suits, tight
in the legs and short in the waist, was the presiding deity of this
Inferno, and as the Ormuz to this Ahrimanes, Gabriel Pendle was the
curate of the district, charged with the almost hopeless task of
reforming his sporting parishioners. And all this, with considerable
irony, was placed almost in the shadow of the cathedral towers.

Not a neighbourhood for Mr Cargrim to venture into, since many sights
therein must have displeased his exact tastes; yet two days after the
reception at the palace the chaplain might have been seen daintily
picking his way over the cobble-stone pavements. As he walked he
thought, and his thoughts were busy with the circumstances which had led
him to venture his saintly person so near the spider's web of The Derby
Winner. The bishop, London, curiosity, Gabriel, this unpleasant
neighbourhood--so ran the links of his chain of thought.

The day following his unexpected illness brought no relief to the
bishop, at all events to outward seeming, for he was paler and more
haggard than ever in looks, and as dour as a bear in manner. With Mrs
Pendle he strove to be his usual cheerful self, but with small success,
as occasionally he would steal an anxious look at her, and heave deep
sighs expressive of much inward trouble. All this was noted by Cargrim,
who carefully strove, by sympathetic looks and dexterous remarks, to
bring his superior to the much-desired point of unburdening his mind.
Gabriel had returned to his lodgings near the Eastgate, and to his
hopeless task of civilising his degraded centaurs. Lucy, after the
manner of maids in love, was building air-castles with Sir Harry's
assistance, and Mrs Pendle kept her usual watch on her weak heart and
fluctuating pulse. The bishop thus escaped their particular notice, and
it was mainly Cargrim who saw how distraught and anxious he was. As for
Dr Graham, he had departed after a second unsatisfactory visit, swearing
that he could do nothing with a man who refused to make a confidant of
his doctor. Bishop Pendle was therefore wholly at the m