"I didn't ask how you could know. I only asked what your opinion was," said the bishop.
"My opinion is worthless," said Bradstock.
"Dear me!" said the bishop, blandly.
CHAPTER XXIV.
England was excited, and London was more excited still. But Spilsborough was the most excited of them all. How it came out, no one knew, but the fact that the bishop was hunting for Lady Penelope Brading, who was married, who was unmarried, who had an infant which was black, which was white, which was adopted, was blazed all over that quiet episcopal town. Dean Briggs was very much annoyed, for the cathedral was no longer the centre of interest in the place. The clergy and the choir and the beadles and the tradesmen all discussed Lady Penelope. They stood in knots and fought and wrangled and argued till they were metaphorically black in the face. The lovers were pursued by gangs of boys who knew their names, and expected them to fight when they met, and followed them around in the hope of making a ring for them. All the world was aware that the duchess was at the palace. As a result, every one called there who was on terms with the bishop. It is not at all surprising that rumour ran fast, east and west and south and north. It is not every day that a quiet cathedral town is the centre of a vast social cyclone. Boston and Spalding had their eyes on Spilsborough. Boston knew that the bishop had made an unepiscopal visitation there with a white-haired peer. Spilsby heard of it, and was jealous. Spilsby talked of it and began to wonder who the young married lady at the Moat House was. Spilsby wondered slowly. In Lincolnshire things move slowly. Lincolnshire is not fast. Folks there are rooted to the soil; they consider matters firmly and stolidly. And of course it has to be remembered that they belong to the see of Lincoln and do not think very much of Spilsborough. Spilsborough was all very well, no doubt, but Lincoln was older and finer and much more wonderful. Nevertheless, though the Lincolnshire folks are slow, they get there at last. It was all very well for Penelope to call herself Mrs. Bramwell. The Spilsby people began to see through the matter. In another month they would have solved the problem, and would have given away the solution by calling Mrs. Bramwell "Your ladyship." But this was not to be, for when Geordie came back from Boston, he went to Bob at once.
"Mr. Robert, the gaff is pretty nigh blowed," he said, earnestly.
"Is it?" asked Bob.
"Safe as houses," said Geordie. "I've my suspicions that the whole show is up the spout, or very nigh up!"
"You don't say so?" said Bob.
"Blimy, but I do say it," replied Geordie. "I saw that gaitered josser, the bishop, at Boston this very afternoon. Her ladyship will be spoofed and smelt out. Some one is givin' the game away. I don't trust that bishop."