On Barron's lips there dawned something which could hardly be called a smile--or triumphant; but the Bishop caught it. In another minute the door had closed upon his visitor. * * * * * Barron walked away through the Close, his mind seething with anger and resentment. He felt that he had been treated as an embarrassment rather than an ally; and he vowed to himself that the Bishop's whole attitude had been grudging and unfriendly. As he passed on to the broad stone pavement that bordered the south transept he became aware of a man coming toward him. Raising his eyes he saw that it was Meynell. There was no way of avoiding the encounter. As the two men passed Barron made a mechanical sign of recognition. Meynell lifted his head and looked at him full. It was a strange look, intent and piercing, charged with the personality of the man behind it. Barron passed on, quivering. He felt that he hated Meynell. The disguise of a public motive dropped away; and he knew that he hated him personally. At the same time the sudden slight misgiving he had been conscious of in the Bishop's presence ran through him again. He feared he knew not what; and as he walked to the station the remembrance of Meynell's expression mingled with the vague uneasiness he tried in vain to put from him. Meynell walked home by Forked Pond to Maudeley. He lingered a little in the leafless woods round the cottage, now shut up, and he chose the longer path that he might actually pass the very window near which Mary had stood when she spoke those softly broken words--words from a woman's soul--which his memory had by heart. And his pulse leapt at the scarcely admitted thought that perhaps--now--in a few weeks he might be walking the dale paths with Mary. But there were stern things to be done first. At Maudeley he found Flaxman awaiting him, and the two passed into the library, where Rose, though bubbling over with question and conjecture, self-denyingly refrained from joining them. The consultation of the two men lasted about an hour, and when Flaxman rejoined his wife, he came alone. "Gone?" said Rose, with a disappointed look. "Oh! I did want to shake his hand!" Flaxman's gesture was unsympathetic. "It is not the time for that yet. This business has gone deep with him. I don't exactly know what he will do. But he has made me promise various things." "When does he see--Torquemada?" said Rose, after a pause. "I think--to-morrow morning." "H'm! Good luck to him! Please let me know also precisely when I may crush Lady St. Morice." Lady St. Morice was the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, and had at a recent dinner party, in Rose's presence, hotly asserted her belief in the charges brought against the Rector of Upcote. She possessed a private chapel adorned with pre-Raphaelite frescoes, and was the sister of one of the chief leaders of the High Orthodox party in convocation.