"My lord," he began with difficulty, moving his big limbs in his chair like a restless schoolboy, "it isn't easy for me to come to-day. There's no one in the world I could speak to except yourself. I find it difficult even to do that."
"My son," said the Bishop gently, "I am a very, very old man. I cannot have many more months to live. When one is as near to death as I am, one loves everything and everybody, because one is going so soon. You needn't be afraid."
And in his heart he must have wondered at the change in this man who, through so many years now, had come to him with so much self-confidence and assurance.
"I have had much trouble lately," Brandon went on. "But I would not have bothered you with that, knowing as I do all that you have to consider just now, were it not that for the first time in my life I seem to have lost control and to be heading toward some great disaster that may bring scandal not only on myself but on the Church as well."
"Tell me your trouble," said the Bishop.
"Nine months ago I seemed to be at the very height of my powers, my happiness, my usefulness." Brandon paused. Was it really only nine months back, that other time? "I had no troubles. I was confident in myself, my health was good, my family were happy. I seemed to have many friends.... Then suddenly everything changed. I don't want to seem false, my lord, in anything that I may say, but it was literally as though in the course of a night all my happiness forsook me.
"It began with my boy being sent down from Oxford. I have only one boy, as I think your lordship knows. He was--he is, in spite of what has happened --very dear to me." Brandon paused.
"Yes, I know," said the Bishop.
"After that everything began to go wrong. Little things, little tiny things--one after another. Some one came to this town who almost at once seemed to put himself into opposition to me." Brandon paused once more.
The Bishop said again: "Yes, I know."