“Nothing serious, I hope?” he asked, struck by an unusual quality in her voice.

“I will tell you,” she evaded, and after a moment of mutual scrutiny he went past her upstairs.

Since they had come to Princhester Lady Ella had changed very markedly.  She seemed to her husband to have gained in dignity; she was stiller and more restrained; a certain faint arrogance, a touch of the “ruling class” manner had dwindled almost to the vanishing point.  There had been a time when she had inclined to an authoritative hauteur, when she had seemed likely to develop into one of those aggressive and interfering old ladies who play so overwhelming a part in British public affairs.  She had been known to initiate adverse judgments, to exercise the snub, to cut and humiliate.  Princhester had done much to purge her of such tendencies.  Princhester had made her think abundantly, and had put a new and subtler quality into her beauty.  It had taken away the least little disposition to rustle as she moved, and it had softened her voice.

Now, when presently she stood in the study, she showed a new circumspection in her treatment of her husband.  She surveyed the tray before him.

“You ought not to drink that Burgundy,” she said.  “I can see you are dog-tired.  It was uncorked yesterday, and anyhow it is not very digestible.  This cold meat is bad enough.  You ought to have one of those quarter bottles of champagne you got for my last convalescence.  There’s more than a dozen left over.”

The bishop felt that this was a pretty return of his own kindly thoughts “after many days,” and soon Dunk, his valet-butler, was pouring out the precious and refreshing glassful....

“And now, dear?” said the bishop, feeling already much better.

Lady Ella had come round to the marble fireplace.  The mantel-piece was a handsome work by a Princhester artist in the Gill style—­with contemplative ascetics as supporters.

“I am worried about Eleanor,” said Lady Ella.

“She is in the dining-room now,” she said, “having some dinner.  She came in about a quarter past eight, half way through dinner.”

“Where had she been?” asked the bishop.

“Her dress was torn—­in two places.  Her wrist had been twisted and a little sprained.”

“My dear!”

“Her face—­Grubby!  And she had been crying.”

“But, my dear, what had happened to her?  You don’t mean—?”

Husband and wife stared at one another aghast.  Neither of them said the horrid word that flamed between them.

“Merciful heaven!” said the bishop, and assumed an attitude of despair.

“I didn’t know she knew any of them.  But it seems it is the second Walshingham girl—­Phoebe.  It’s impossible to trace a girl’s thoughts and friends.  She persuaded her to go.”

“But did she understand?”

“That’s the serious thing,” said Lady Ella.

She seemed to consider whether he could bear the blow.