“No,” said the Bishop of Princhester, “practically—­I haven’t.”

“My dear boy!” it was as if they were once more rector and curate.  “My dear brother! do you know what the value of an ex-bishop is in the ordinary labour market?”

“I have never thought of that.”

“Evidently.  You have a wife and children?”

“Five daughters.”

“And your wife married you—­I remember, she married you soon after you got that living in St. John’s Wood.  I suppose she took it for granted that you were fixed in an ecclesiastical career.  That was implicit in the transaction.”

“I haven’t looked very much at that side of the matter yet,” said the Bishop of Princhester.

“It shouldn’t be a decisive factor,” said Bishop Likeman, “not decisive.  But it will weigh.  It should weigh....”

The old man opened out fresh aspects of the case.  His argument was for delay, for deliberation.  He went on to a wider set of considerations.  A man who has held the position of a bishop for some years is, he held, no longer a free man in matters of opinion.  He has become an official part of a great edifice which supports the faith of multitudes of simple and dependant believers.  He has no right to indulge recklessly in intellectual and moral integrities.  He may understand, but how is the flock to understand?  He may get his own soul clear, but what will happen to them?  He will just break away their supports, astonish them, puzzle them, distress them, deprive them of confidence, convince them of nothing.

“Intellectual egotism may be as grave a sin,” said Bishop Likeman, “as physical selfishness.

“Assuming even that you are absolutely right,” said Bishop Likeman, “aren’t you still rather in the position of a man who insists upon Swedish exercises and a strengthening dietary on a raft?”

“I think you have made out a case for delay,” said his hearer.

“Three months.”

The Bishop of Princhester conceded three months.

“Including every sort of service.  Because, after all, even supposing it is damnable to repeat prayers and creeds you do not believe in, and administer sacraments you think superstition, nobody can be damned but yourself.  On the other hand if you express doubts that are not yet perfectly digested—­you experiment with the souls of others....”

(5)

The bishop found much to ponder in his old friend’s counsels.  They were discursive and many-fronted, and whenever he seemed to be penetrating or defeating the particular considerations under examination the others in the background had a way of appearing invincible.  He had a strong persuasion that Likeman was wrong—­and unanswerable.  And the true God now was no more than the memory of a very vividly realized idea.  It was clear to the bishop that he was no longer a churchman or in the generally accepted sense of the word a Christian, and that he was bound to come out of the church.  But all sense of urgency had gone.  It was a matter demanding deliberation and very great consideration for others.