She stood looking at him, her face very pale. "I shall still have to ask him if it is true." The Archbishop resigned himself to what he could not avoid. "If you must," he said. And then, thinking forward to what might possibly happen, he added: "It was my duty to tell you everything." "Yes," she replied, "but you did not mean to tell me at first." "I hoped that I might spare you," he explained. "These are not things that one speaks of willingly; if they can be avoided it is better that they should not be known." She gave a gesture of impatience, pressing her hands against her eyes. "Do not say anything more to me," she said, and her voice sounded hopeless and dead. "Not now." And then, very slowly, she turned and went out of the room. The Archbishop told himself that he had done his duty. Personal aggrandizement, great opportunities of power and social position he had put away, he had done a true and holy thing. And so he sat down and wrote to the Prime Minister. CHAPTER XX THE THORN AND THE FLESH I The next day Prince Max received a letter written by the hand which had become for him the dearest in the world. It was very simple and straightforward and methodical: it began with the word "Beloved" and asked whether certain things were true. It seemed, then, that for the first time his confession was understood. Not a single one of the questions put to him contained anything that was untrue, but they did not go much into detail, and no commentary was made upon the facts indicated. Max sat down and wrote a very beautiful letter in reply, and got no answer. For three days he put up with this rebuff to his honesty of character and his literary ability; then not finding his lady where he expected her to be, he went and called upon her father. The Archbishop was out; but Max, not to be denied, sat down and waited for his return. He waited for over two hours. It was getting towards dusk when his Grace entered, a reverend, high-shouldered figure, showing a stoop and beginning now to look old. The Archbishop's very formal greeting told Max that here was the enemy. This did not at all dismay him; at that time, indeed, he was full of confidence. The temporary separation between himself and his beloved, brought about in a conventional way which he thoroughly despised, was for the moment a hindrance; but it had not yet taken to itself the colors of doom. He knew that Jenifer's heart was entirely his, and that they, with their common honesty, had only to meet again to be made one. What he wanted to know, therefore, was not so much the opinion of Jenifer's father about himself and the engagement, as to find out her present whereabouts. From the first moment of their meeting he knew that he did not stand in the Archbishop's good graces; but that hardly concerned him; and so it was almost without circumlocution that he asked for Jenifer's address.