"I tamed him," Carlton explained with a slight access of colour. "The house is overrun with them, but this fellow lets none of the others in here." The bishop was slow to follow up his exclamation. He certainly was a man of fewer words than formerly. "You ought not to have made yourself such an anchorite," he said at last. "You might have smoked your pipe--you say that's your first--and written to me sooner!" So that still rankled. Carlton was not altogether surprised. "My lord," said he, "how could I? You had advised me to live anywhere else, and yet here I was!" "The circumstances justified you, Mr. Carlton. I could not foresee such circumstances, I assure you. I heard of them, however, at the time." Carlton had never written till the five years were nearly up, when it became a necessary preliminary to the resumption of those offices from which he had been debarred; but, when he did write, he had done so to such effect that certain other preliminaries had been foregone. "Though you did not write," continued the bishop, "Sir Wilton Gleed did. We had some correspondence about you, and we disagreed; that is one reason why I declined his invitation and accepted yours. I would not mention it, only you are now such excellent friends. And I understand that he himself makes no secret of his former attitude towards you." "On the contrary, he has expressed the most generous regret for the line he took." "He may well regret it," said the bishop. But Carlton had accepted his old enemy's aid, and would not hear ill of him, whatever he might think. "It was natural enough," he murmured. "What! To prevent you from making the one reparation in your power? To have you boycotted right and left? To trump up a criminal charge? To force you, a clergyman, to remain in your own parish, labouring like a convict by the year together? To trample the cloth underfoot in the eyes of all the world?" "Oh," groaned Carlton, "it was I who did that! I alone am to blame for that--I alone!" He leant his elbows on the chimney-piece, his face in his hands; for stand he must if he was only to hear harsh words--that night of all nights! Carlton was unprepared for such severity at this stage; and infinitely hurt; for at his worst, when he deserved no sympathy at all, the bishop had shown much more. But behind his back the blazing eyes were quenched, and the long mouth relaxed. "No, no," a softer voice said; "you have done just the opposite--just the opposite. You have been hard enough upon yourself; but the world was harder on you--once." There was kindness in the rasping voice, but no enthusiasm. None other had made so little of the mere physical feat of this man; and to him the tone was unmistakable. "I know what you mean," said Carlton, turning round, his own eye alight. "You think the world is going to the other extreme!" "It generally does," replied the bishop. "I do not mean to be unkind."