fore she had moved from her place, one of the
attendant clergy came back by his desire to conduct her to him.

He held out his hand as she courtesied low.

"Mistress Woodford," he said, "my old friend's niece! He wrote to
me of you, but I have had no opportunity of seeing you before."

"Oh, my Lord! I was so much longing to see and speak with you."

"I am lodging at Lambeth," said the Bishop, "and it is too far to
take you with me thither, but perhaps my good brother here," turning
to the chaplain, "can help us to a room where we can be private."

This was done; the chaplain's parlour at the Cockpit was placed at
their disposal, and there a few kind words from Bishop Ken led to
the unburthening of her heavy heart. Of Ken's replies to the
controversial difficulties there is no need to tell. Indeed,
ambition was far more her temptation than any real difficulties as
to doctrine. Her dissatisfaction at being unable to answer the
questions raised by Father Crump was exaggerated as the excuse and
cover to herself of her craving for escape from her present
subordinate post; and this the Bishop soon saw, and tenderly but
firmly drew her to own both this and to confess the ambitious spirit
which had led her into this scene of temptation. "It was true
indeed," he said, "that trial by our own error is hardest to
encounter, but you have repented, and by God's grace, my child, I
trust you will be enabled to steer your course aright through the
trials of loyalty to our God and to our King that are coming upon us
all. Ever remember God and the plain duty first, His anointed next.
Is there more that you would like to tell me? for you still bear a
troubled look, and I have full time."

Then Anne told him all the strange adventure of Portchester Castle,
and even of the apparition of the night before. That gentleness and
sympathy seemed to draw out all that was in her heart, and to her
surprise, he did not treat the story of that figure as necessarily a
delusion. He had known and heard too much of spiritual
manifestations to the outward senses to declare that such things
could not be.

What she had seen might be explained by one of four hypotheses. It
was either a phantom of her brain, and her being fully awake,
although recently dwelling on the recollection, rendered that idea
less probable, or the young man had not been killed and she had seen
him in propria persona.

She had Charles Archfield's word that the death w