ox but successful practitioner, Mr. Barker, the bone-setter, she
was convinced she could be restored to efficiency. But she had no ready
money. The bishop agreed without hesitation. His only doubt was the
certainty of the cure, but upon that point Lady Ella was convinced;
there had been a great experience in the Walshingham family.

"It is pleasant to be able to do things like this," said Lady Ella,
standing over him when this matter was settled.

"Yes," the bishop agreed; "it is pleasant to be in a position to do
things like this...."

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH - THE SECOND VISION

(1)

A MONTH later found the bishop's original state of perplexity and
insomnia returned and intensified. He had done none of all the things
that had seemed so manifestly needing to be done after his vision in the
Athenaeum. All the relief and benefit of his experience in London had
vanished out of his life. He was afraid of Dr. Dale's drug; he knew
certainly that it would precipitate matters; and all his instincts
in the state of moral enfeeblement to which he had relapsed, were to
temporize.

Although he had said nothing further about his changed beliefs to Lady
Ella, yet he perceived clearly that a shadow had fallen between them.
She had a wife's extreme sensitiveness to fine shades of expression and
bearing, and manifestly she knew that something was different. Meanwhile
Lady Sunderbund had become a frequent worshipper in the cathedral, she
was a figure as conspicuous in sombre Princhester as a bird of paradise
would have been; common people stood outside her very very rich blue
door on the chance of seeing her; she never missed an opportunity of
hearing the bishop preach or speak, she wrote him several long
and thoughtful letters with which he did not bother Lady Ella, she
communicated persistently, and manifestly intended to become a very
active worker in diocesan affairs.

It was inevitable that she and the bishop should meet and talk
occasionally in the cathedral precincts, and it was inevitable that he
should contrast the flexibility of her rapid and very responsive mind
with a certain defensiveness, a stoniness, in the intellectual bearing
of Lady Ella.

If it had been Lady Sunderbund he had had to explain to, instead of Lady
Ella, he could have explained a dozen times a day.

And since his mind was rehearsing explanations it was not unnatural they
should overflow into this eagerly receptive channel, and that the less