se you sent for me. It is about time,' said Graham, grimly,
surveying the bishop's wasted face and embarrassed manner. 'You are
looking about as ill as a man can look. What is the matter with you?'

'Nothing is the matter with me. I am in my usual health.'

'You look it,' said the doctor, ironically. 'Good Lord, man!' with
sudden wrath, 'why in the name of the Thirty-Nine Articles can't you
tell me the truth?'

'The truth?' echoed the bishop, faintly.

'Yes, my lord, I said the truth, and I mean the truth. If you are not
wrong in body you are in mind. A man doesn't lose flesh, and colour, and
appetite, and self-control for nothing. You want me to cure you. Well, I
can't, unless you show me the root of your trouble.'

'I am worried over a private affair,' confessed Pendle, driven into a
corner.

'Something wrong?' asked Graham, raising his eyebrows.

'Yes, something is very wrong.'

'Can't it be put right?'

'I fear not,' said the bishop, in hopeless tones. 'It is one of those
things beyond the power of mortal man to put right.'

'Your trouble must be serious,' said Graham, with a grave face.

'It is very serious. You can't help me. I can't help myself. I must
endure my sorrow as best I may. After all, God strengthens the back for
the burden.'

'Oh, Lord!' groaned Graham to himself, 'that make-the-best-of-it-view
seems to be the gist of Christianity. What the deuce is the good of
laying a too weighty burden on any back, when you've got to strengthen
it to bear it? Well, bishop,' he added aloud, 'I have no right to ask
for a glimpse of your skeleton. But can I help you in any way?'

'Yes,' cried the bishop, eagerly. 'I sent for you to request your aid.
You can help me, Graham, and very materially.'

'I'm willing to do so. What shall I do?'

'Send my wife and daughter over to Nauheim on the pretext that Mrs
Pendle requires the baths, and keep them there for two months.'

Dr Graham looked puzzled, for he could by no means conceive the meaning
of so odd a request. In common with other people, he was accustomed to
consider Bishop and Mrs Pendle a model couple, who would be as miserable
as two separated love-birds if parted. Yet here was the husband asking
his aid to send away the wife on what he admitted was a transparent
pretext. For the moment he was nonplussed.

'Pardon me, bishop,' he said delicately, 'but have you had words with
your wife?'

'No! no! God forbid, Graham. She is as good and tender as