on the Monday
following the Sunday they were now approaching, spend a few days with
them before their departure, and be left to his own devices in the house
and parish, about the Thursday or Friday. An intense desire now seized
Robert to get hold of the man at once, before the next Sunday. It was
strange how the interview with his wife seemed to have crystallised,
precipitated, everything. How infinitely more real the whole matter
looked to him since the afternoon! It had passed--at any rate for the
time--out of the region of thought, into the hurrying evolution of
action, and as soon as action began it was characteristic of Robert's
rapid energetic nature to feel this thirst, to make it as prompt, as
complete, as possible. The fiery soul yearned for a fresh consistency,
though it were a consistency of loss and renunciation.

To-morrow he must write to the bishop. The bishop's residence was only
eight or ten miles from Murewell; he supposed his interview with him
would take place about Monday or Tuesday. He could see the tall stooping
figure of the kindly old man rising to meet him; he knew exactly the
sort of arguments that would be brought to bear upon him. Oh, that it
were done with--this wearisome dialectical necessity! His life for
months had been one long argument. If he were but left free to feel, and
live again!

The practical matter which weighed most heavily upon him was the
function connected with the opening of the new Institute, which had been
fixed for the Saturday--the next day but one. How was he--but much more
how was Catherine--to get through it? His lips would be sealed as to any
possible withdrawal from the living, for he could not by then have seen
the bishop. He looked forward to the gathering, the crowds, the local
enthusiasm, the signs of his own popularity, with a sickening distaste.
The one thing real to him through it all would be Catherine's white
face, and their bitter joint consciousness.

And then he said to himself, sharply, that his own feelings counted for
nothing. Catherine should be tenderly shielded from all avoidable pain,
but for himself there must be no flinching, no self-indulgent weakness.
Did he not owe every last hour he had to give to the people amongst whom
he had planned to spend the best energies of life, and for whom his own
act was about to part him in this lame impotent fashion?

Midnight! The sounds rolled silverly out, effacing the soft murmurs of
the night. So th