(13)
In the vestry he found Canon Bliss. “Help me to take off these garments,” the bishop said. “I shall never wear them again.”
“You are ill,” said the canon, scrutinizing his face.
“Not ill. But the word was taken out of my mouth. I perceive now that I have been in a trance, a trance in which the truth is real. It is a fearful thing to find oneself among realities. It is a dreadful thing when God begins to haunt a priest.... I can never minister in the church again.”
Whippham thrust forward a chair for the bishop to sit down. The bishop felt now extraordinarily fatigued. He sat down heavily, and rested his wrists on the arms of the chair. “Already,” he resumed presently, “I begin to forget what it was I said.”
“You became excited,” said Bliss, “and spoke very loudly and clearly.”
“What did I say?”
“I don't know what you said; I have forgotten. I never want to remember. Things about the Second Advent. Dreadful things. You said God was close at hand. Happily you spoke partly in Greek. I doubt if any of those children understood. And you had a kind of lapse—an aphasia. You mutilated the interrogation and you did not pronounce the benediction properly. You changed words and you put in words. One sat frozen—waiting for what would happen next.”
“We must postpone the Pringle confirmation,” said Whippham. “I wonder to whom I could telephone.”
Lady Ella appeared, and came and knelt down by the bishop's chair. “I never ought to have let this happen,” she said, taking his wrists in her hands. “You are in a fever, dear.”