He was afraid of Dr. Dale's drug; he knew
certainly that it would precipitate matters; and all his instincts
in the state of moral enfeeblement to which he had relapsed, were to
temporize.
Although he had said nothing further about his changed beliefs to Lady
Ella, yet he perceived clearly that a shadow had fallen between them.
She had a wife's extreme sensitiveness to fine shades of expression and
bearing, and manifestly she knew that something was different. Meanwhile
Lady Sunderbund had become a frequent worshipper in the cathedral, she
was a figure as conspicuous in sombre Princhester as a bird of paradise
would have been; common people stood outside her very very rich blue
door on the chance of seeing her; she never missed an opportunity of
hearing the bishop preach or speak, she wrote him several long
and thoughtful letters with which he did not bother Lady Ella, she
communicated persistently, and manifestly intended to become a very
active worker in diocesan affairs.
It was inevitable that she and the bishop should meet and talk
occasionally in the cathedral precincts, and it was inevitable that he
should contrast the flexibility of her rapid and very responsive mind
with a certain defensiveness, a stoniness, in the intellectual bearing
of Lady Ella.
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