"Quite cured," he said gravely. "He is saved in body and saved in soul. You say his wife, Madam, was a Saint: I think, Madam, that our friend is not very far from it now."
He stopped suddenly, almost jerkily, and his dark, somewhat saturnine face became watchful and with a certain fear in it.
What all this might mean John Morton Sims was at a loss to understand. That it meant something, something very out of the ordinary, he was very well aware. William Moultrie was not himself—that was very evident. And he had brought this odd, mediæval parson with him for some special reason. Morton Sims was not very sympathetic toward the Middle Age. Spoken to-day the word "Abbot" or "Father"—used ecclesiastically—always affected him with slight disgust.
Nevertheless, he nodded to the Bishop and turned to Mrs. Daly.
"Gilbert Lothian is coming here during this afternoon," he said. "The Bishop has specially asked me to arrange that he shall speak during the Conference. It seems he has come specially from Mullion in Cornwall to be present this afternoon. Father Joseph Edward has brought him. It seems that he has something important to say."
For some reason or other, what it was the doctor could not have said, Julia Daly seemed strangely excited at the news.
"Such testimony as his," she said, "coming from such a man as that, will be a wonderful experience. In fact I do not know that there will ever have been anything like it."
Morton Sims had not quite realised this aspect of the question. He had wondered, when Moultrie had insisted upon putting Lothian's name down as the third speaker during the afternoon. Moultrie was perfectly within his rights, of course, as Chairman, but it seemed rather a drastic thing to do. It was a disturbance of settled order, and the scientific mind unconsciously resented it. Now, however, the scientific mind realised the truth of what Julia Daly had said. Of course, if Gilbert Lothian was really going to make a confession, and obviously that was what he was coming here for under the charge of this dark-visaged "Abbot"—then indeed it would be extremely valuable. Thousands of people who had been "converted" and cured from drunkenness had "given their experiences" upon temperance platforms, but they had invariably been people of the lower classes. While their evidence as to the reality of their conversion—their change—was valuable and real, they were incapable one and all of giving any details of value to the student and psychologist.
"Yes!" Morton Sims said suddenly, "if Mr. Lothian is going to speak, then we shall gain very much from what he says."
But he noticed that the Bishop's face did not become less troubled and anxious than before. He saw also that the silent clergyman sitting by the opposite wall showed no sympathetic interest in his point of view.