was scant need to insist on that extenuating word.
That night the Bishop broke the blow: and Follet took it badly. Later, Miss Methuen had the strength of mind to insist on facing him herself; and from her he bore it even worse. Miss Methuen must have felt considerable contempt for his weakness. He locked himself in his room and would see no one else that night. The Bishop came to the door: no, in the morning. The Bishop came later: he was sobbing. Later still, however—much later—his breathing sounded easy and even. The Bishop crept away on tip-toe, and himself lay down, after intercessory prayer; but early in the morning he went again to the door; and there was no more sound of breathing within. The wind came through the keyhole, no other breath touched the ear; a thread of sunlight marked the bottom of the door. In sudden frenzy the Bishop burst it open, and stood panting in an empty room, his beard bisected by the draught between the open window and the broken door. The bushman's clothes had vanished from their peg; those of the Reader lay neatly folded on the little table underneath.
*****
The wholesale jeweller was for some time prevented by the exigencies of a thriving business from following Evelyn up country. She had worn his grand ring upwards of a month, when, while driving with her father in the neighbourhood of the river, she descried a man lying on his face in the sun, with his hat off. Evelyn pointed with the finger of contempt to this self-evident case of drunkenness; and the Bishop also took characteristic action. He stopped the buggy, handed the reins to Evelyn, and jumped out. The man lay at a distance, which Bishop Methuen covered at the double. He found a flat stone, placed it under the sleeper's forehead, and fixed the wideawake as securely as possible over the back of his head and neck. Then he returned to the buggy, again running, and drove homeward at an unusual rate.
"He placed the stone under the sleeper's forehead."
"How despicable!" Evelyn exclaimed.
"Which of us?" asked her father, with a sarcasm he would not have employed towards her in former days.
"That intoxicated wretch, of course!"
Dr. Methuen lashed his horses. "Evelyn," said he between the strokes, "I profoundly wish that you would be less free with your contempt. There are worse sins than drunkenness, which is chiefly shocking. You should pray to avoid those sins—mark me, they are so much the worse for not looking so bad—and try yourself to be becomingly humble."
Evelyn, not unnaturally, sulked during the remainder of that drive. She was too much offended to take notice even of the unwonted pace. On reaching the Lodge she went straight to her room. And the Bishop, saddling his riding horse with his own hands, galloped back to the spot where he had left the drunken sleeper. The man was gone. The Bishop had recognised him; he was unaware that the man was then in the recovering stage, and that he had himself been recognised.
He scoured the country. Late in the evening, which was very dark, with a sandy
