He was being worried. He was being intolerably worried, and he
was ill and unable to sustain his positions. This doubt, this

sudden discovery of controversial unsoundness, was only one
aspect of his general neurasthenia. It had been creeping into his

mind since the "Light Unden the Altar" controversy. Now suddenly
it had leapt upon him from his own unwary lips.

The immediate trouble arose from his loyalty. He had followed
the King's example; he had become a total abstainer and, in

addition, on his own account he had ceased to smoke. And his
digestion, which Princhester had first made sensitive, was

deranged. He was suffering chemically, suffering one of those
nameless sequences of maladjustments that still defy our ordinary

medical science. It was afflicting him with a general malaise, it
was affecting his energy, his temper, all the balance and comfort

of his nerves. All day he was weary; all night he was wakeful. He
was estranged from his body. He was distressed by a sense of

detachment from the things about him, by a curious intimation of
unreality in everything he experienced. And with that went this

levity of conscience, a heaviness of soul and a levity of
conscience, that could make him talk as though the Creeds did not

matter--as though nothing mattered....
If only he could smoke!

He was persuaded that a couple of Egyptian cigarettes, or three
at the outside, a day, would do wonders in restoring his nervous

calm. That, and just a weak whisky and soda at lunch and dinner.
Suppose now--!

His conscience, his sense of honour, deserted him. Latterly he
had had several of these conscience-blanks; it was only when they

were over that he realized that they had occurred.
One might smoke up the chimney, he reflected. But he had no

cigarettes! Perhaps if he were to slip downstairs....
Why had he given up smoking?

He groaned aloud. He and his reflection eyed one another in
mutual despair.

There came before his memory the image of a boy's face, a
swarthy little boy, grinning, grinning with a horrible

knowingness and pointing his finger--an accusing finger. It had
been the most exasperating, humiliating, and shamefulincident in

the bishop's career. It was the afternoon for his fortnightly
address to the Shop-girls' Church Association, and he had been

seized with a panic fear, entirely irrational and unjustifiable,
that he would not be able to deliver the address. The fear had

arisen after lunch, had gripped his mind, and then as now had
come the thought, "If only I could smoke!" And he had smoked. It

seemed better to break a vow than fail the Association. He had
fallen to the temptation with a completeness that now filled him

with shame and horror. He had stalked Dunk, his valet-butler, out
of the dining-room, had affected to need a book from the

book-case
beyond the sideboard, had gone insincerely to the sideboard

humming "From Greenland's icy mountains," and then, glancing over
his shoulder, had stolen one of his own cigarettes, one of the

fatter sort. With this and his bedroom matches he had gone off to
the bottom of the garden among the laurels, looked everywhere

except above the wall to be sure that he was alone, and at last
lit up, only as he raised his eyes in gratitude for the first

blissful inhalation to discover that dreadful little boy peeping
at him from the crotch in the yew-tree in the next garden. As

though God had sent him to be a witness!
Their eyes had met. The bishop recalled with an agonized

distinctness every moment, every error, of that shameful
encounter. He had been too surprised to conceal the state of

affairs from the pitiless scrutiny of those youthful eyes. He had
instantly made as if to put the cigarette behind his back, and

then as frankly dropped it....
His soul would not be more naked at the resurrection. The

little boy had stared, realized the state of affairs slowly but
surely, pointed his finger....

Never had two human beings understood each other more
completely.

A dirty little boy! Capable no doubt of a thousand kindred
scoundrelisms.

It seemed ages before the conscience-stricken bishop could tear
himself from the spot and walk back, with such a pretence of

dignity as he could muster, to the house.
And instead of the discourse he had prepared for the

Shop-girls' Church Association, he had preached on temptation and
falling, and how he knew they had all fallen, and how he

understood and could sympathize with the bitterness of a secret
shame, a moving but unsuitable discourse that had already been

subjected to misconstruction and severereproof in the local
press of Princhester.

But the haunting thing in the bishop's memory was the face and
gesture of the little boy. That grubby little finger stabbed him

to the heart.
"Oh, God!" he groaned. "The meanness of it! How did I bring

myself--?"
He turned out the light convulsively, and rolled over in the

bed, making a sort of cocoon of himself. He bored his head into
the pillow and groaned, and then struggled impatiently to throw

the bed-clothes off himself. Then he sat up and talked aloud.
"I must go to Brighton-Pomfrey," he said. "And get a medical

dispensation. If I do not smoke--"
He paused for a long time.

Then his voice sounded again in the darkness, speaking quietly,
speaking with a note almost of satisfaction.

"I shall go mad. I must smoke or I shall go mad."
For a long time he sat up in the great bed with his arms about

his knees.
(5)

Fearful things came to him; things at once dreadfully
blasphemous and entirely weak-minded.

The triangle and the eye became almost visible upon the black
background of night. They were very angry. They were spinning

round and round faster and faster. Because he was a bishop and
because really he did not believe fully and completely in the

Trinity. At one and the same time he did not believe in the
Trinity and was terrified by the anger of the Trinity at his

unbelief.... He was afraid. He was aghast.... And oh! he was
weary....

He rubbed his eyes.
"If I could have a cup of tea!" he said.

Then he perceived with surprise that he had not thought of
praying. What should he say? To what could he pray?

He tried not to think of that whizzing Triangle, that seemed
now to be nailed like a Catherine wheel to the very centre of his

forehead, and yet at the same time to be at the apex of the
universe. Against that--for protection against that--he was

praying. It was by a great effort that at last he pronounced the
words:

"Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord ...."
Presently be had turned up his light, and was prowling about

the room. The clear inky dinginess that comes before the raw dawn
of a spring morning, found his white face at the window, looking

out upon the great terrace and the park.
CHAPTER THE SECOND - THE WEAR AND TEAR OF EPISCOPACY

(1)
IT was only in the last few years that the bishop had

experienced these nervous and mental crises. He was a belated