out next day."

He became more composed at the thought of Rachel. But presently his lip
quivered. It would be all right in the end. But, oh! not to have done
it! Not to have done it! To have come to his marriage with a whiter
past, not to need her forgiveness on the very threshold of their life
together, not to have been unfaithful to her before he knew her.

What man who has disbelieved in his youth in the sanctity of Love, and
then later has knelt in its Holy of Holies, has escaped that pang?

CHAPTER XLVI

There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good-fellowship in
thee.--SHAKESPEARE

"My mind misgives me, Dick!" said the Bishop, a day or two later, as
Dick joined him and his sister and Rachel at luncheon at the Palace. "I
am convinced that you have been up to some mischief."

"I have just returned from Warpington, my lord. I understood it was your
wish I should ride over and tell them Hester was better."

"It certainly was my wish. I'm very much obliged to you. But I
remembered after you had gone that you had refused to speak to Gresley
when he was over here, and I was sorry I sent you."

"I spoke to him all right," said Dick, grimly. "That was why I was so
alacritous to go."

The Bishop looked steadily at him.

"Until you are my suffragan I should prefer to manage my own business
with my clergy."

"Just so," said Dick, helping himself to mustard. "But, you see, I'm his
cousin, and I thought it just as well to let him know quietly and
dispassionately what I thought of him. So I told him I was not
particular about my acquaintances. I knew lots of bad eggs out in
Australia, half of them hatched in England, chaps who'd been shaved and
tubbed gratis by Government--in fact, I'd a large visiting list, but
that I drew the line at such a cad as him, and that he might remember I
wasn't going to preach for him at any more of his little cold-water
cures"--a smile hovered on Dick's crooked mouth--"or ever take any
notice of him in future. That was what he wanted, my lord. You were too
soft with him, if you'll excuse my saying so. But that sort of chap
wants it giving him hot and strong. He doesn't understand anything else.
He gets quite beyond himself, fizzing about on his little
pocket-handkerchief of a parish, thinking he is a sort of god, because
no one makes it their business to keep him in his place, and rub it into
him that he is an infernal fool. That is why some clergymen jaw so,
because th