Lady Standish was one of those clinging beings who seem morally and physically to be always seeking a prop. Before adversity she was prostrate, and when his lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells was ushered into her sitting-room, half-an-hour after Sir Jasper\'s departure for Hammer\'s Fields, he found the poor lady stretched all her length upon the sofa, her head buried in the cushions.

"Dear me," said his lordship, and paused. He was a tall, portly, handsome gentleman with sleek countenance, full eye, and well-defined waistcoat. Could human weakness have touched him, he would have felt a pride in those legs which so roundly filled the silk stockings. But that human weakness could ever affect the Bishop of Bath and Wells was a thing that dignitary (and he gave his Maker thanks for it) felt to be utterly inconceivable.

"Lady Standish," said the Bishop; then he waved his hand to the curious servants. "Leave us, leave us, friends," said he.

Lady Standish reared herself with a sort of desperate heart-sickness into a sitting posture and turned her head to look dully upon her visitor.

"You come too late," she said; "my lord. Sir Jasper has gone to this most disastrous meeting."

"My dear Lady Standish," said Dr. Thurlow, "my dear child," he took a chair and drew it to the sofa, and then lifted her slight languid hand and held it between his two plump palms. "My dear Lady Standish," pursued he in a purring, soothing tone. If he did not know how to deal with an afflicted soul (especially if that afflicted soul happened to belong to the aristocracy and in preference inhabited a young female body), who did? "I came upon the very moment I received your letter. I might perhaps have instantly done something to help in this matter, had you been more explicit, but there was a slight incoherence ... very natural!" Here he patted her hand gently. "A slight incoherence which required explanations. Now tell me—I gather that your worthy husband has set forth upon an affair of honour, eh? Shall we say a duel?"

Lady Standish gave a moaning assent.

"Some trifling quarrel. Hot-headed young men! It is very reprehensible, but we must not be too hard on young blood. Young blood is hot! Well, well, trust in a merciful Providence, my dear Lady Standish. You know, not a sparrow falls, not a hair of our heads, that is not counted. Was the, ah—quarrel about cards, or some such social trifle?"

"It was about me," said the afflicted wife in a strangled voice.

"About you, my dear lady!" The clasp of the plump hand grew, if possible, a trifle closer, almost tender. Lady Standish was cold and miserable, this warm touch conveyed somehow a vague feeling of strength and comfort.

"About me," she repeated, and her lip trembled.

"Ah, is it so? And with whom does Sir Jasper fight?"

"With Colonel Villiers," said she, and shot a glance of full misery into the benign large-featured face bending over her.

"Colonel Villiers," repeated the Bishop in tones of the blankest astonishment. "Not—eh, not—er, old Colonel Villiers?"

"Oh, my lord," cried Lady Standish, "I am the most miserable and the most innocent of women!"

"My dear madam," cried the Bishop, "I never for an instant doubted the latter." His hold upon her hand relaxed, and she withdrew it to push away the tears that now began to gather thick and fast on her eyelashes. The Bishop wondered how it was he had never noticed before what a very pretty woman Lady Standish was, what charming eyes she had, and what quite unusually long eyelashes. It was something of a revelation to him too, to see so fair and fine a skin in these days of rouge and powder.

"And yet," sobbed Lady Standish, "\'tis my fault too, for I have been very wrong, very foolish! Oh, my lord, if my husband is hurt, I cannot deny \'tis I shall bear the guilt of it."

"Come, tell me all about it," said the Bishop, and edged from his chair to her side on the sofa, and re-possessed himself of her hand. She let it lie in his; she was very confiding. "We are all foolish," said Dr. Thurlow, "we are all, alas, prone to sin." He spoke in the plural to give her confidence, not that such a remark could apply to any Bishop of Bath and Wells.

"Oh, I have been very foolish," repeated the lady. "I thought, my lord, I fancied that my husband\'s affection for me was waning."

"Impossible!" cried his lordship. But he felt slightly bewildered.

"And so, acting upon inconsiderate advice, I—I pretended—only pretended indeed, my lord—that I cared for someone else, and Sir Jasper got jealous and so he has been calling everybody out thinking that he has a rival."

"Nevertheless," said the Bishop, "he has no rival. Do I understand you correctly, my dear child? These suspicions of his are unfounded? Colonel Villiers?"

"Colonel Villiers," cried she, "that old stupid red-nosed wretch! No, my lord, indeed, there is no one. My husband has my whole heart!" She caught her breath and looked up at him with candid eyes swimming in the most attractive tears. "Colonel Villiers!" cried she. "Oh, how can you think such a thing of me? But my husband will not believe me; indeed, indeed, indeed I am innocent! He was jealous of Lord Verney too, and last night fought Mr. O\'Hara."

The Bishop smiled to himself with the most benign indulgence. His was a soul overflowing with charity, but it was chiefly when dealing with the foibles of a pretty woman that he appreciated to the full what a truly inspired ordinance that of charity is.

"My dear child, if I may call you so, knowing your worthy mother so well, you must not grieve like this. Let me feel that you look upon me as a friend. Let me wipe away these tears. Why, you are trembling! Shall we not have more trust in the ruling of a merciful Heaven? Now I am confident that Sir Jasper will be restored to you uninjured or with but a trifling injury. And if I may so advise, do not seek, my dear Lady Standish, in the future to provoke his jealousy in this manner; do not openly do anything which will arouse those evil passions of anger and vengeance in him!"

"Oh, indeed, indeed," she cried, and placed her other little hand timidly upon the comforting clasp of the Bishop\'s, "indeed I never will again!"

"And remember that in me you have a true friend, my dear Lady Standish. Allow me to call myself your friend."

Here there came a sound of flying wheels and frantic hoofs without, and the door-bell was pealed and the knocker plied so that the summons echoed and re-echoed through the house.

"Oh, God!" screamed Lady Standish springing to her feet, "they have returned! Oh, heavens............