The Bishop paused.  Rachel’s face worked.

“He deceived you,” said the Bishop, “not because he wished to deceive you, but because he was in a horrible position, and because his first impulse of love was to keep you at any price.  But his love for you was raising him even while he deceived you.  Did he spend sleepless nights because for months he vilely deceived Lord Newhaven?  No.  Rectitude was not in him.  His conscience was not awake.  But I tell you, Rachel, he has suffered like a man on the rack from deceiving you.  I knew by his face as soon as I saw him that he was undergoing some great mental strain.  I did not understand it, but I do now.”

Rachel’s mind, always slow, moved, stumbled to its bleeding feet.

“It was remorse,” she said, turning her face away.

“It was not remorse.  It was repentance.  Remorse is bitter.  Repentance is humble.  His love for you has led him to it.  Not your love for him, Rachel, which breaks down at the critical moment; his love for you which has brought him for the first time to the perception of the higher life, to the need of God’s forgiveness, which I know from things he has said, has made him long to lead a better life, one worthier of you.”

“Don’t,” said Rachel.  “I can’t bear it.”

The Bishop rose, and stood facing her.

“And at last,” he went on—­“at last, in a moment, when you showed your full trust and confidence in him, he shook off for an instant the clogs of the nature which he brought into the world, and rose to what he had never been before—­your equal.  And his love transcended the lies that love itself on its lower plane had prompted.  He reached the place where he could no longer lie to you.  And then, though his whole future happiness depended on one more lie, he spoke the truth.”

Rachel put out her hand as if to ward off what was coming.

“And how did you meet him the first time he spoke the truth to you?” continued the Bishop, inexorably.  “You say you loved him, and yet—­you spurned him from you, you thrust him down into hell.  You stooped to him in the beginning.  He was nothing until your fancied love fell upon him.  And then you break him.  It is women like you who do more harm in the world than the bad ones.  The harm that poor fool Lady Newhaven did him is as nothing compared to the harm you have done him.  You were his god, and you have deserted him.  And you say you loved him.  May God preserve men from the love of women if that is all that a good woman’s love is capable of.”

“I can do nothing,” said Rachel, hoarsely.

“Do nothing!” said the Bishop, fiercely.  “You can do nothing when you are responsible for a man’s soul God will require his soul at your hands.  Scarlett gave it into your keeping, and you took it.  You had no business to take it if you meant to throw it away.  And now you say you can do nothing!”

“What can I do?” said Rachel, faintly.