your letter?"

"I had thought of reading it to you both, but now I shall not."

She put the letter into an envelope, sealed it up with practical
swiftness, rang the bell for Annie and sent it to the postbox round the
corner.

"I put the Bishop in," she added, with a mockery of defiance that was
almost girlish, when Annie had gone out.

"That was a mistake," said the Canon sonorously.

"Why?"

"Bishops never carry weight with the wives, or widows, of deans."

"But why not?" asked Rosamund, with a touch of real anxiety.

"Because the wives of deans always think their husbands ought to be
bishops instead of those who are bishops, and the widows of deans always
consider that they ought to be the widows of bishops. They therefore
very naturally feel that bishops are not entitled by merit to the
positions they hold, and could be treated with a delicate disdain."

"I never thought of that. I wonder if Annie----"

"Too late!" said the Canon. "You'll have to turn out of Little
Cloisters, I foresee that."

Rosamund sat down, leaned towards him with her hands clasped tightly
together, and, in her absolutely unself-conscious way, began to tell him
and Beattie what she felt about Welsley, or something of what she felt.
A good deal she could only have told to Father Robertson. When she had
finished, Canon Wilton said, in his rather abrupt and blunt way:

"Well, but if your husband comes home unexpectedly? You can't stay here
then, can you?"

Beatrice, who was still on the window seat, leaned out, and began to
speak to Robin below her in a quiet voice which could scarcely be heard
within the room.

"But Dion sees no prospect of coming home yet."

"I heard to-day from some one in London that the C.I.V. may be back
before Christmas."

"Dion doesn't say so."

"It mayn't be true."

"Dion writes that no one out there has any idea when the war will end."

"Probably not. But the C.I.V. mayn't be needed all through the war.
Most of them are busy men who've given up a great deal out of sheer
patriotism. Fine fellows! They've done admirable work, and the War
Office may decide that they've done enough. Things out there have taken
a great turn since Roberts and Kitchener went out. The C.I.V. may come
marching home long before peace is declared."

He spoke with a certain pressure, a certain intensity, and his eyes
never left Rosamund's face.

"I'm glad my Dion's one of them," she said. "And Robin will be glad,
too, some