"Well!" said the Bishop and Rachel, simultaneously.
"She's better," said the little doctor, angrily; he was always angry when he was anxious. "She's round the first corner. But how to pull her round the next corner, that is what I'm thinking."
"Defer the next corner."
"We can't now her mind is clear. She's as sane as you or I are, and a good deal sharper. When she asks about her book she'll have to be told."
"A lie would be quite justifiable under the circumstances."
"Of course, of course, but it would be useless. You might hoodwink her for a day or two, and then she would find out, first, that the magnum opus is gone, and secondly, that you and Miss West, whom she does trust entirely at present, have deceived her. You know what she is when she thinks she is being deceived. She abused you well, my lord, until you reinstated yourself by producing Regie Gresley. But you can't reinstate yourself a second time. You can't produce the book."
"No," said the Bishop. "That is gone forever."
Rachel could not trust herself to speak. Perhaps she had realized more fully than even the Bishop had done what the loss of the book was to Hester, at least, what it would be when she knew it was gone.
"Tell her, and give her that if she becomes excitable," said Dr. Brown, producing a minute bottle out of a voluminous pocket. "And if you want me I shall be at Canon Wylde's at five o'clock. I'll look in anyhow before I go home."
Rachel and the Bishop stood a moment in silence after he was gone, and then Rachel took up the little bottle, read the directions carefully, and turned to go up-stairs.