“Why do you want me to understand?”
There was something very strange in those far, far blue eyes, so old, so ageless. Newbold gazed into them, curiously compelled. “Perhaps you know best the answer to that, Bishop.”
A wistful smile touched the Bishop’s lips, “Perhaps I do, lad. For it has been a long while that we have been friends.”
“You know, Bishop, surely,” the man cried out, “how I feel toward you,—in spite of—mere policies?”
The Bishop nodded slightly, “Yes, yes,” then looked at the other with a larger thought. “But, Newbold, I have no policy, I have found only one reading to the riddle of life, and I preach it. There is no policy in that, I think, is there?”
“I think,” said Newbold, quietly, “that you are the only man I have ever seen solve that riddle.”
“I have not solved it, Murray, if I have not given you the clew.”
At that unbearable sadness Murray Newbold cried out, “No, Bishop, no! If I have failed, it is not your failure! Faith such as yours, life such as yours,—it is impossible to men like me. It is not for us.”
“I always thought it was for all.” There was a long pause. “And it is. I have not known how to show you, that is all.” The Bishop bowed his head in silence, murmuring, “But I wanted you,” again a long pause, “as you would want peace for your boy!”
The next words were not to Newbold, but Newbold knew to Whom they were spoken, “Yet I ask so much! We can never share with Him, we who ask fulfillment!” Then the Bishop started sharply from revery, “The service! I must go. It is too late, perhaps, already for the communion.”