sausages I like?
May I take th'ee? I've been up houas."

The dee' bishop appeared in the sunlit doorway.

(5)

The bishop felt more contentment in the London train than he had felt
for many weeks. He had taken two decisive and relieving steps. One was
that he had stated his case to another human being, and that a very
charming and sympathetic human being, he was no longer a prey to a
current of secret and concealed thoughts running counter to all the
appearances of his outward life; and the other was that he was now
within an hour or so of Brighton-Pomfrey and a cigarette. He would lunch
on the train, get to London about two, take a taxi at once to the wise
old doctor, catch him over his coffee in a charitable and understanding
mood, and perhaps be smoking a cigarette publicly and honourably and
altogether satisfyingly before three.

So far as Brighton-Pomfrey's door this program was fulfilled without
a hitch. The day was fine and he had his taxi opened, and noted with a
patriotic satisfaction as he rattled through the streets, the glare of
the recruiting posters on every vacant piece of wall and the increasing
number of men in khaki in the streets. But at the door he had a
disappointment. Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was away at the front--of all
places; he had gone for some weeks; would the bishop like to see Dr.
Dale?

The bishop hesitated. He had never set eyes on this Dr. Dale.

Indeed, he had never heard of Dr. Dale.

Seeing his old friend Brighton-Pomfrey and being gently and tactfully
told to do exactly what he was longing to do was one thing; facing some
strange doctor and going slowly and elaborately through the whole
story of his illness, his vow and his breakdown, and perhaps having his
reaction time tested and all sorts of stripping and soundings done, was
quite another. He was within an ace of turning away.

If he had turned away his whole subsequent life would have been
different. It was the very slightest thing in the world tipped the
beam. It was the thought that, after all, whatever inconvenience and
unpleasantness there might be in this interview, there was at the end of
it a very reasonable prospect of a restored and legitimate cigarette.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH - THE FIRST VISION

(1)

Dr. DALE exceeded the bishop's worst apprehensions. He was a lean, lank,
dark young man with long black hair and irregular, rather prolonged
features; his chin was right over to the left; he looked constant