"Luke's train must be in by now and he will be hunting for you. I ought not to keep you any longer; but I am so glad that you are my Bishop and my father's best friend. I feel just as if I had had a talk with him. He, I know, would agree with every word you have said."
Then finding it was so late they hurried into the garden where they discovered Luke among a crowd of clergy, and Rachel, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, left them together.
Luke's eyes rested lovingly on the retreating figure of his wife, and as he turned to the Bishop the question in his eyes was so evident that the latter answered it.
"Yes," he said laughing, "I know what you want me to say—that there never was a sweeter girl in the world; I congratulate you Greville on your marriage."
"It is an ideal marriage," said Luke. "She is all I could possibly wish for."
"Knowing her father I'm not surprised to hear you say so. What does she do in the parish?"
For a moment Luke was taken aback. He suddenly realized the fact that she did nothing but keep his home for him.
"I don't encourage her to work in the parish," he said. "She is much too young, I feel, as yet; I consulted my mother about it and we both came to the conclusion that it was best at present for her to do nothing in that line."
"But is not that rather a pity? For the Vicar's wife to be a nonentity is not good for a parish, surely there is something she can do."
"I can't tell you the state of the place," said Luke. "It would not really be fit for her to go among the people. I could not endure for her to learn of all the awful sin that abounds. It would be such a terrible shock to her."