“Is it?  I dare say you are right.  But I don’t care either way.”

“Why trouble your mind about it, or about anything?”

“Because I have a feeling, indeed, it would be extraordinary if I had not, for Dr. Brown is always rubbing it in, that I ought to meet my trouble bravely, and not sink down under it, as he thinks I am doing now.  He says others have suffered more than I have.  I know that, for I have been with them.  It seems,” said Hester, with the ghost of a smile, “that there is an etiquette about these things, just as the blinds are drawn up after a funeral.  The moment has come for me, but I have not drawn up my blinds.”

“You will draw them up presently.”

“I would draw them up now,” said Hester, looking at him steadily, “if I could.  I owe it to you and Rachel to try, and I have tried, but I can’t.”

The Bishop’s cheek paled a little.

“Take your own time,” he said, but his heart sank.

He saw a little boat with torn sail and broken rudder, drifting on to a lee shore.

“I seem to have been living at a great strain for the last year,” said Hester.  “I don’t know one word from another now, but I think I mean concentration.  That means holding your mind to one place, doesn’t it?  Well, now, something seems to have broken, and I can’t fix it to anything any more.  I can talk to you and Rachel for a few minutes if I hold my mind tight, but I can’t really attend, and directly I am alone, or you leave off speaking, my mind gets loose from my body and wanders away to an immense distance, to long, dreary, desert places.  And then if you come in I make a great effort to bring it back, and to open my eyes, because if I don’t you think I’m ill.  You don’t mind if I shut them now, do you?—­because I’ve explained about them, and holding them open does tire me so.  I wish they could be propped open.  And—­my mind gets farther and further away every day.  I hope you and Rachel won’t think I am giving way if—­sometime—­I really can’t bring it back any longer.”

“Dear Hester, no.”

“I will not talk any more then.  If you and Rachel understand, that is all that matters.  I used to think so many things mattered, but I don’t now.  And don’t think I’m grieving about the book while I’m lying still.  I have grieved, but it is over.  I’m too tired to be glad or sorry about anything any more.”

Hester lay back spent and gray among her pillows.

The Bishop roused her to take the stimulant put ready near at hand, and then sat a long time watching her.  She seemed unconscious of his presence.  At last the nurse came in, and he went out silently, and returned to his study.  Rachel was waiting there to hear the result of the interview.

“I can do nothing,” he said.  “I have no power to help her.  After forty years ministry I have not a word to say to her.  She is beyond human aid—­at least, she is beyond mine.”

“You think she will die?”