"Then I'll walk along with you," rejoined the other. "I do wish you'd let me help you. You are evidently all played out physically, and half an eye could see that you've something on your mind. Is it the bishop?"
"That has troubled me a good deal," Ashe returned, feeling a relief in being able to say this truthfully.
"Well, Phil, if you worry yourself sick over what you can't help, what strength will you have for the things that you can do? I'm glad it isn't all my going that has brought you to this, for you look positively ill. I wish you'd get sick-leave, and go off a while."
Ashe shook his head again. He felt that if Maurice went on talking to him he should lose his self-command. He must get away; yet he could not bear to hurt his friend. He turned toward Maurice and held out his hand.
"Dear Maurice," he said, "don't be hurt; but I can't talk with you. I must be alone. I am upset, and not myself. It is not that I don't trust you, you know; but there are things that a man has to fight out for himself."
The other stopped, and regarded him closely.
"All right, Phil," he said. "I understand. If you've got a fight with the devil on hand nobody can help you. I only wish I could."
He wrung the hand of Ashe, and added:
"Good-by. I'm always fond of you, old fellow; and you know that when there is a place that I can help there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."
Ashe tried to answer, but he could not command his voice. He could only return the warm pressure of Wynne's hand, and then, miserable and hopeless, go on his way to his conflict with the arch fiend.