The bishop was slow to follow up his exclamation. He certainly was a man of fewer words than formerly.
"You ought not to have made yourself such an anchorite," he said at last. "You might have smoked your pipe—you say that's your first—and written to me sooner!"
So that still rankled. Carlton was not altogether surprised.
"My lord," said he, "how could I? You had advised me to live anywhere else, and yet here I was!"
"The circumstances justified you, Mr. Carlton. I could not foresee such circumstances, I assure you. I heard of them, however, at the time."
Carlton had never written till the five years were nearly up, when it became a necessary preliminary to the resumption of those offices from which he had been debarred; but, when he did write, he had done so to such effect that certain other preliminaries had been foregone.
"Though you did not write," continued the bishop, "Sir Wilton Gleed did. We had some correspondence about you, and we disagreed; that is one reason why I declined his invitation and accepted yours. I would not mention it, only you are now such excellent friends. And I understand that he himself makes no secret of his former attitude towards you."
"On the contrary, he has expressed the most generous regret for the line he took."
"He may well regret it," said the bishop.
But Carlton had accepted his old enemy's aid, and would not hear ill of him, whatever he might think. "It was natural enough," he murmured.