It caught the
green ring and flashed splashes of fire from its heart. His mind went back
to that day, not so very long ago, when, with triumphant happiness, he had
seemed to share in the Bishop's spirit, to be dust of his dust, and bone
of his bone. That had been the very day, he remembered, of Falk's return
from Oxford. Since that day everything had gone wrong for him--Falk, the
Elephant, Ronder, Foster, the Chapter. And now his wife! Never in all the
years of his married life had she spoken to him as she had done that
morning. She must be on the edge of a serious illness, a very serious
illness. Strangely a new concern for her, a concern that he had never felt
in his life before, arose in his heart. Poor Amy--and how tiresome if she
were ill, the house all at sixes and sevens! With a shock he realised that
his mind was not devotional. He swung himself back to the service, looking
down benevolently upon the two rows of people waiting patiently to come in
their turn to the altar steps.
At breakfast, however, there Mrs. Brandon was, looking quite her usual
self, in the Sunday dress of grey silk, making the tea, quiet as she
always was, answering questions submissively, patiently, "as the wife of
an Archdeacon should.
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