Things were very gloomy at the palace. It has been already said that for many days after Dr. Tempest's visit to Barchester the intercourse¹ between the bishop² and Mrs. Proudie had not been of a pleasant nature. He had become so silent, so sullen³, and so solitary⁴ in his ways, that even her courage had been almost cowed, and for a while she had condescended⁵ to use gentler measures, with the hope that she might thus bring her lord round to his usual state of active submission⁷; or perhaps, if we strive to do her full justice, we may say of her that her effort was made conscientiously⁸, with the idea of inducing him to do his duty with proper activity. For she was a woman not without a conscience, and by no means indifferent to the real service which her husband, as bishop of the diocese, was bound to render to the affairs of the Church around her. Of her own struggles after personal dominion⁹ she was herself unconscious; and no doubt they gave her, when recognized and acknowledged by herself, many stabs to her inner self, of which no single being in the world knew anything. And now, as after a while she failed in producing any amelioration in the bishop's mood, her temper also gave way, and things were becoming very gloomy and very unpleasant.

The bishop and his wife were at present alone in the palace. Their married daughter and her husband had left them, and their unmarried daughter was also away. How far the bishop's mood may have produced this solitude¹⁰ in the vast house I will not say. Probably Mrs. Proudie's state of mind may have prevented her from having other guests in the place of those who were gone. She felt herself to be almost disgraced in the eyes of all those around her by her husband's long absence from the common rooms of the house and by his dogged silence at meals. It was better, she thought, that they two should be alone in the palace.

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