my lord.'

'Good-day, doctor, and many, many thanks for your kindly help.'

'Not at all. I only wish that you would let me help you to some purpose
by treating me as your friend and unburdening your mind. There is one
great truth that you should become a convert to, bishop.'

'Ay, ay, what is that?' said Pendle, listlessly.

'That medical men are the father-confessors of Protestantism. Good-day!'

Outside the library Cargrim was idling about, in the hope of picking up
some crumbs of information, when Graham took his departure. But the
little doctor, who was not in the best of tempers for another
conversation, shot past the chaplain like a bolt from the bow; and by
the time Cargrim recovered from such brusque treatment was half-way down
the avenue, fuming and fretting at his inability to understand the
attitude of Bishop Pendle. Dr Graham loved a secret as a magpie does a
piece of stolen money, and he was simply frantic to find out what vexed
his friend; the more so as he believed that he could help him to bear
his trouble by sympathy, and perhaps by advice do away with it
altogether. He could not even make a guess at the bishop's hidden
trouble, and ran over all known crimes in his mind, from murder to
arson, without coming to any conclusion. Yet something extraordinary
must be the matter to move so easy-going, healthy a man as Dr Pendle.

'I know more of his life than most people,' thought Graham, as he
trotted briskly along, 'and there is nothing in it that I can see to
upset him so. He hasn't forged, or coined, or murdered, or sold himself
to Pluto-Pan Satan so far as I know; and he is too clear-headed and sane
to have a monomania about a non-existent trouble. Dear, dear,' the
doctor shook his head sadly, 'I shall never understand human nature;
there is always an abyss below an abyss, and the firmest seeming ground
is usually quagmire when you come to step on it. George Pendle is a
riddle which would puzzle the Sphinx. Hum! hum! another fabulous beast.
Well, well, I can only wait and watch until I discover the truth, and
then--well, what then?--why, nothing!' And Graham, having talked himself
into a _cul-de-sac_ of thought, shook his head furiously and strove to
dismiss the matter from his too inquisitive mind. But not all his
philosophy and will could accomplish the impossible. 'We are a finite
lot of fools,' said he, 'and when we think we know most we know least.
How that nameless Unseen Power must smile at ou