“I wish I could help you,” said Mr. Heard.

“I wish you could.  I wish anyone could.  There was that young Jew, Marten, who understood more about these things than most people.  A coarse little fellow, but quite a specialist.  He promised to supply me with an up-to-date statement, accompanied by a map of the geological structure of the island.  I said to myself:  Just what I wanted!  Well, this confounded statement has never reached my hands.  Now I fear he has left the place.  Gone away altogether.  Didn’t have the decency to say good-bye or leave his address.  Too bad.  Who knows when the next mineralogist will turn up?  These fellows are not as common as blackbirds.  Meanwhile I have to rely on my own efforts.  It’s wonderful, by the way, how much a person can pick up of odds and ends of information when forced, by a hobby of this kind, to delve into recondite departments of knowledge which he would otherwise not have dreamt of exploring.  One grows quite encyclopaedic!  Minerals, medicine, strategy, heraldry, navigation, palaeography, statistics, politics, botany—­what did I know or care about all these things before I stumbled on old Perrelli?  Have you ever tried to annotate a classic, Mr. Heard?  I assure you it opens up new vistas, new realms of delight.  It gives one a genuine zest in life.  Enthralling!”

And thereupon the bibliographer fell silent, all at once.  He had succumbed, yet again, to his besetting sin:  talking too enthusiastically to outsiders of what was nearest his heart.  Why on earth should a globe-trotting bishop be bothered about the mineralogy of Nepenthe?  It was absurd:  tactless of him.

He tried to atone for the blunder by some mundane trivialities.

“What are you doing afterwards?”

“Going up to see Mrs. Meadows.”

“Are you?  Do remember me very kindly!  Or perhaps—­no.  Better not.  Fact is, she cut me dead two days ago.  At least, it looked uncommonly like it.  I confess I was rather upset, because I’m not conscious of having done anything to annoy her.  Indeed, I’ve always felt a kind of weakness for Mrs. Meadows; there is something so fine and womanly about her.  Will you try to find out what it’s all about?  Thanks.  Perhaps she may not have noticed me.  She was walking very fast.  And I must say she was not looking herself at all.  Not at all.  White and scared.  Looked as if she had seen a ghost.”

The bishop was troubled by these words.

“Is that so?” he asked.  “You alarm me.  I think I’ll be off this minute.  She is my cousin, you know; and I’ve been rather concerned about her lately.  Yes; I won’t wait for the end of this funeral; I’ll be off!  Perhaps we shall meet this evening.  Then I can tell you her news.  As to deliberately cutting you—­don’t you believe that for a minute.”

“I shall be down here about seven o’clock. . . .”

“People like her,” thought Mr. Heard, as he fell out of the procession.  He would make a point of having a good long chat, and perhaps stay to luncheon.