"No, it is done. I have given my parishioners the church I owed them, since they lost their last church through me. I set them once an example for which I shall pray to be forgiven till my life's end; but now, please God, I have at least shown them that because a man falls it need not be utterly and for ever. He can rise; or, at any rate, he can try. God knows I have tried; and they know it; and it may help them in their own day of bitter trouble. But it was you, my lord, who first helped me, by bidding me never despair. I have tried to teach your lesson; that is all."
"But you have not finished," the bishop urged, gently. "Go on teaching it—go on."
"No. It is no sudden thought. I undertook in the beginning, when Sir Wilton Gleed wanted to turn me out forcibly, to go of my own accord when I had built the church. He may forget it, but I do not."
"Then I devoutly hope he will not accept your resignation!"
"He must. I have made my arrangements. There is need of clergy in the far corners of our empire, greater need than here. There was an Australian at the hotel I have been staying at in London, and he has shown me my field. I am going out to offer my services to the Bishop of Riverina, and I am relying upon a word from you for their acceptance. I hope to sail at the beginning of next month; my passage is already taken."
"I suppose you took it when you were in town?" the bishop grumbled. Carlton coloured in an instant.
"I did—but I had long been thinking of it," he said, hastily. "Oh, my lord, in my place you would do the same! How could I continue here to be smiled on by these poor people? It was easier when they looked the other way, when I lived in this room alone, doing everything for myself, and not a soul came near me. How can I settle down again to a prosperous life—here of all places—with my child in the parish, and his poor mother . . . That is what they all forget in the generous warmth of their reaction; but the more they forget, the more keenly I remember. Ah! do you think I ever have forgotten—for an hour—for a moment—since I left off working with my hands?"
One of these was stretched in the direction of the churchyard; and the bishop read its touching testimony for the first time.
"There," whispered Carlton, in strange excitement, "there lies one . . . whose ruin and whose death are at my door. I don't forget—I never have forgotten. I have paid, and I will pay till the end. And there shall be no other woman . . ."
His tongue failed him; his face was grief-stricken; the whole man was changed. So then the human being, his bishop, knew that there was another woman in his heart already; recalled the most terrible part of this man's confession to him, years before; and presently plucked him by the sleeve. And the voice that Robert Carlton heard, as he leaned once more with his elbow on the chimney-piece, and his face between his hands, was the voice of their last interview, at the bishop's palace, in the blank forenoon of a wet summer's day.