“What puzzles me,” he said, “is why the early Christians identified the Spermaticos Logos of the Stoics with the second and not with the third person of the Trinity.”

To which the bishop, rising artlessly to the bait, replied, “Ah! that indeed is the unfortunate aspect of the whole affair.”

And then the Irish Catholic came down on him....

(3)

How the bishop awakened in the night after this dispute has been told already in the opening section of this story.  To that night of discomfort we now return after this comprehensive digression.  He awoke from nightmares of eyes and triangles to bottomless remorse and perplexity.  For the first time he fully measured the vast distances he had travelled from the beliefs and attitudes of his early training, since his coming to Princhester.  Travelled—­or rather slipped and fallen down the long slopes of doubt.

That clear inky dimness that comes before dawn found his white face at the window looking out upon the great terrace and the park.

(4)

After a bout of mental distress and sleeplessness the bishop would sometimes wake in the morning not so much exhausted as in a state of thin mental and bodily activity.  This was more particularly so if the night had produced anything in the nature of a purpose.  So it was on this occasion.  The day was clear before him; at least it could be cleared by sending three telegrams; his man could go back to Princhester and so leave him perfectly free to go to Brighton-Pomfrey in London and secure that friendly dispensation to smoke again which seemed the only alternative to a serious mental breakdown.  He would take his bag, stay the night in London, smoke, sleep well, and return the next morning.  Dunk, his valet-butler, found him already bathed and ready for a cup of tea and a Bradshaw at half-past seven.  He went on dressing although the good train for London did not start until 10.45.

Mrs. Garstein Fellows was by nature and principle a late riser; the breakfast-room showed small promise yet of the repast, though the table was set and bright with silver and fresh flowers, and a wood fire popped and spurted to greet and encourage the March sunshine.  But standing in the doorway that led to the promise and daffodils and crocuses of Mrs. Garstein Fellows’ garden stood Lady Sunderbund, almost with an effect of waiting, and she greeted the bishop very cheerfully, doubted the immediate appearance of any one else, and led him in the most natural manner into the new but already very pleasant shrubbery.

In some indefinable special way the bishop had been aware of Lady Sunderbund’s presence since first he had met her, but it was only now that he could observe her with any particularity.  She was tall like his own Lady Ella but not calm and quiet; she was electric, her eyes, her smiles, her complexion had as it were an established brightness that exceeded the common lustre of things.  This morning she