The poor bishop had been sick for nearly a year past. Then the cause of his illness was found to be an internal malignant disease. At first, even after the nature of the trouble had been diagnosed, he had battled against his mortal sickness, now feeling better and now again more ill, and for a long time his family had hoped against failing hope that it might not be what the physicians had decided it to be. Then, at last, towards the end, came the time when it became no longer possible to disguise the inevitable fact. Bishop Godkin must die--the end was certain and was very near, and nothing, not all the skill of modern surgery, could save him. It was dreadful for Mrs. Godkin and the two Misses Godkin--both elderly spinsters--and they fell, for a time, prostrate under the blow that the attendant physicians had to administer. Then they somewhat rallied again from that prostration, and, after a while, again began now and then to hope, for there were times when there would be a respite in the ghastly sickness. Meantime the work upon the unfinished temple was being pushed forward with a renewed vigor after the freezing cold of the winter. Stone by stone, bit by bit, it grew towards its slow completion. It seemed to those poor women, in these dark days of their trouble, to be peculiarly tragic to look out of the broad, clear windows of the bishop's house, across the open plazza-like square, and to see everything over there at the towering structure so busy and full of life; to hear the ceaseless clink-clicking of hammer and chisel, and now and then the creaking of block-and-tackle; to see always the restless moving of the workmen among the blocks of marble, and the débris scattered about under the sheds in front of the south nave--to see all this and then to think of the muffled stillness of the sick-room over yonder, where, maybe, the physician sat listening patiently to the sick man as he maundered on about his discomforts. Everybody believed that Dr. Caiaphas would be the next bishop--that is, everybody except Dr. Caiaphas himself. He desired the honor so much that he did not dare let himself believe--hardly to let himself hope. He used to go every day or two to visit the dying man. It was always a distressing task to him, but he resolutely set himself to do it as cheerfully as possible. He used to dread it very much; the sight of the unpreventable squalor of a sick-room, even as comfortable as this, was very revolting to him--the smell of the medicines and the sight of the basins and towels, the half-drawn curtains, the silent, shadow-like movements of the trained nurse, and always the sick man himself--the centre of all this attention--sitting propped among the pillows in a great arm-chair by the table. There were generally flowers in the tall tumbler on the table; they only made everything seem still more ghastly with their insistence of something sweet and pretty where nothing could be sweet and pretty.