pe from the great sea of London dinginess
that threatened to submerge his family. And it was also, he felt, the
line of his duty; it was his "call."

At least that was how he felt at first. And then matters began to grow
complicated again.

Things had gone far between himself and Lady Sunderbund since that
letter he had read upon the beach at Old Hunstanton. The blinds of the
house with the very very blue door in Princhester had been drawn
from the day when the first vanload of the renegade bishop's private
possessions had departed from the palace. The lady had returned to
the brightly decorated flat overlooking Hyde Park. He had seen her
repeatedly since then, and always with a fairly clear understanding that
she was to provide the chapel and pulpit in which he was to proclaim to
London the gospel of the Simplicity and Universality of God. He was to
be the prophet of a reconsidered faith, calling the whole world from
creeds and sects, from egotisms and vain loyalties, from prejudices of
race and custom, to the worship and service of the Divine King of all
mankind. That in fact had been the ruling resolve in his mind, the
resolve determining his relations not only with Lady Sunderbund but with
Lady Ella and his family, his friends, enemies and associates. He had
set out upon this course unchecked by any doubt, and overriding the
manifest disapproval of his wife and his younger daughters. Lady
Sunderbund's enthusiasm had been enormous and sustaining....

Almost imperceptibly that resolve had weakened. Imperceptibly at first.
Then the decline had been perceived as one sometimes perceives a thing
in the background out of the corner of one's eye.

In all his early anticipations of the chapel enterprise, he had imagined
himself in the likeness of a small but eloquent figure standing in a
large exposed place and calling this lost misled world back to God. Lady
Sunderbund, he assumed, was to provide the large exposed place (which
was dimly paved with pews) and guarantee that little matter which was
to relieve him of sordid anxieties for his family, the stipend. He had
agreed in an inattentive way that this was to be eight hundred a year,
with a certain proportion of the subscriptions. "At first, I shall be
the chief subscriber," she said. "Before the rush comes." He had been
so content to take all this for granted and think no more about it--more
particularly to think no more about it--that for a time he entirely
disregard