Let us, however, go back a little.
Barron's letter to the Bishop was the first shot in the direct and responsible attack. It consisted of six or seven closely written sheets, and agreed in substance with four or five others from the same hand, addressed at the same moment to the chief heads of the Orthodox party.
The Bishop received it at breakfast, just after he had concluded a hot political argument with his little granddaughter Barbara.
"All Tories are wicked," said Barbara, who had a Radical father, "except grandpapa, and he, mummy says, is weally a Riberal."
With which she had leaped into the arms of her nurse, and was carried off gurgling, while the Bishop threatened her from afar.
Then, with a sigh of impatience, as he recognized the signature on the envelope, he resigned himself to Barron's letter. When he had done it, sitting by the table in his library, he threw it from him with indignation, called for his coat, and hurried across his garden to the Cathedral for matins. After service, as with a troubled countenance he was emerging from the transept door, he saw Dornal in the Close and beckoned to him.
"Come into the library for ten minutes. I very much want to speak to you."
The Bishop led the way, and as soon as the door was shut he turned eagerly on his companion:
"Do you know anything of these abominable stories that are being spread about Richard Meynell?"
Dornal looked at him sadly.