"I do not quite understand you."
"What did it all matter? The Bishop did a foolish thing in talking of the metropolitan press. But he had only meant to put you on your guard."
"I do not choose to be put on my guard in that way," said the Doctor.
"No; exactly. And he should have known you better than to suppose you would bear it. Then you pressed him, and he found himself compelled to send you that stupid newspaper. Of course he had made a mistake. But don't you think that the world goes easier when mistakes are forgiven?"
"I did forgive it, as far as foregoing the action."
"That, I think, was a matter of course. If you had succeeded in putting the poor Bishop into a witness-box you would have had every sensible clergyman in England against you. You felt that yourself."
"Not quite that," said the Doctor.
"Something very near it; and therefore you withdrew. But you cannot get the sense of the injury out of your mind, and, therefore, you have persecuted the Bishop with that letter."
"Persecuted?"
"He will think so. And so should I, had it been addressed to me. As I said before, all your arguments are true,—only I think you have made so much more of the matter than was necessary! He ought not to have sent you that newspaper, nor ought he to have talked about the metropolitan press. But he did you no harm; nor had he wished to do you harm;—and perhaps it might have been as well to pass it over."