But at her words the Bishop’s face grew stern, “No, I have utterly failed to make him anything that I wished. But it is arrogant, perhaps, this hoping to make anybody anything. Yet how could I help hoping? He was a splendid boy, and I had no son.”
In that stern, brooding silence, Lucy said at length, “Don’t mind too much, Henry. Remember you idealize—persons and—towns. He was always out of place here, that is all. He could never belong here.”
The Bishop turned his head in the old quick boyish way, “But could he not have a place in Westbury, if Westbury would make a place for him?”
“Incorrigible one!” she smiled. “How?”
Stern age in judgment on his failure left the Bishop’s face,—the little sunny child stole back to it. “I have a little hope,” he admitted, “but so very small! It depends on you, all of it.”
His eyes were all aflame, but his tone was grave. “You know so well how to help a man in his work, how to cheer him on through doubt and failure. Have you ever failed me?”
“I know how to let a man talk to me, perhaps,” she murmured.
“Yes, how you have let me talk to you, always,—ever since the mission was founded! Ever since that day we have talked, ever since that day I have brought my work to you!”
“And I have listened!”
“And have helped! Lucy, as you have helped,” she felt the sharp intake of his breath, “as you have helped me, could you not also help him who shall come after me?”