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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dr. Wortle's School, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Dr. Wortle's School
+
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 18, 2007  [eBook #21847]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. WORTLE'S SCHOOL***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Stanford Carmack
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   This e-text was taken from the first edition of this novel and
+   attempts to reproduce the original spelling, punctuation etc.
+   Some corrections have been made--a complete list of changes and
+   items to note is at the end of the e-text.
+
+   The Table of Contents of Volume II is located at the beginning
+   of that volume.
+
+
+
+
+
+DR. WORTLE'S SCHOOL.
+
+A Novel.
+
+BY
+
+ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Chapman and Hall, Limited, 193, Piccadilly.
+1881.
+
+London:
+R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, Printers,
+Bread Street Hill.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
+
+   PART I.
+
+      CHAPTER I.     DR. WORTLE
+
+      CHAPTER II.    THE NEW USHER
+
+      CHAPTER III.   THE MYSTERY
+
+   PART II.
+
+      CHAPTER IV.    THE DOCTOR ASKS HIS QUESTION
+
+      CHAPTER V.     "THEN WE MUST GO"
+
+      CHAPTER VI.    LORD CARSTAIRS
+
+   PART III.
+
+      CHAPTER VII.   ROBERT LEFROY
+
+      CHAPTER VIII.  THE STORY IS TOLD
+
+      CHAPTER IX.    MRS. WORTLE AND MR. PUDDICOMBE
+
+   PART IV.
+
+      CHAPTER X.     MR. PEACOCKE GOES
+
+      CHAPTER XI.    THE BISHOP
+
+      CHAPTER XII.   THE STANTILOUP CORRESPONDENCE
+
+
+
+DR. WORTLE'S SCHOOL.
+
+PART I.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+DR. WORTLE.
+
+THE Rev. Jeffrey Wortle, D.D., was a man much esteemed by others,--and by
+himself.  He combined two professions, in both of which he had been
+successful,--had been, and continued to be, at the time in which we speak
+of him.  I will introduce him to the reader in the present tense as Rector
+of Bowick, and proprietor and head-master of the school established in the
+village of that name.  The seminary at Bowick had for some time enjoyed a
+reputation under him;--not that he had ever himself used so new-fangled
+and unpalatable a word in speaking of his school.  Bowick School had been
+established by himself as preparatory to Eton.  Dr. Wortle had been
+elected to an assistant-mastership at Eton early in life soon after he had
+become a Fellow of Exeter.  There he had worked successfully for ten
+years, and had then retired to the living of Bowick.  On going there he
+had determined to occupy his leisure, and if possible to make his fortune,
+by taking a few boys into his house.  By dint of charging high prices and
+giving good food,--perhaps in part, also, by the quality of the education
+which he imparted,--his establishment had become popular and had outgrown
+the capacity of the parsonage.  He had been enabled to purchase a field or
+two close abutting on the glebe gardens, and had there built convenient
+premises.  He now limited his number to thirty boys, for each of which he
+charged L200 a-year.  It was said of him by his friends that if he would
+only raise his price to L250, he might double the number, and really make
+a fortune.  In answer to this, he told his friends that he knew his own
+business best;--he declared that his charge was the only sum that was
+compatible both with regard to himself and honesty to his customers, and
+asserted that the labours he endured were already quite heavy enough.  In
+fact, he recommended all those who gave him advice to mind their own
+business.
+
+It may be said of him that he knew his own so well as to justify him in
+repudiating counsel from others.  There are very different ideas of what
+"a fortune" may be supposed to consist.  It will not be necessary to give
+Dr. Wortle's exact idea.  No doubt it changed with him, increasing as his
+money increased.  But he was supposed to be a comfortable man.  He paid
+ready money and high prices.  He liked that people under him should
+thrive,--and he liked them to know that they throve by his means.  He
+liked to be master, and always was.  He was just, and liked his justice to
+be recognised.  He was generous also, and liked that, too, to be known.
+He kept a carriage for his wife, who had been the daughter of a poor
+clergyman at Windsor, and was proud to see her as well dressed as the wife
+of any county squire.  But he was a domineering husband.  As his wife
+worshipped him, and regarded him as a Jupiter on earth from whose nod
+there could be and should be no appeal, but little harm came from this.
+If a tyrant, he was an affectionate tyrant.  His wife felt him to be so.
+His servants, his parish, and his school all felt him to be so.  They
+obeyed him, loved him, and believed in him.
+
+So, upon the whole, at the time with which we are dealing, did the
+diocese, the county, and that world of parents by whom the boys were sent
+to his school.  But this had not come about without some hard fighting.
+He was over fifty years of age, and had been Rector of Bowick for nearly
+twenty.  During that time there had been a succession of three bishops,
+and he had quarrelled more or less with all of them.  It might be juster
+to say that they had all of them had more or less of occasion to find
+fault with him.  Now Dr. Wortle,--or Mr. Wortle, as he should be called in
+reference to that period,--was a man who would bear censure from no human
+being.  He had left his position at Eton because the Head-master had
+required from him some slight change of practice.  There had been no
+quarrel on that occasion, but Mr. Wortle had gone.  He at once commenced
+his school at Bowick, taking half-a-dozen pupils into his own house.  The
+bishop of that day suggested that the cure of the souls of the
+parishioners of Bowick was being subordinated to the Latin and Greek of
+the sons of the nobility.  The bishop got a response which gave an
+additional satisfaction to his speedy translation to a more comfortable
+diocese.  Between the next bishop and Mr. Wortle there was, unfortunately,
+misunderstanding, and almost feud for the entire ten years during which
+his lordship reigned in the Palace of Broughton.  This Bishop of Broughton
+had been one of that large batch of Low Church prelates who were brought
+forward under Lord Palmerston.  Among them there was none more low, more
+pious, more sincere, or more given to interference.  To teach Mr. Wortle
+his duty as a parish clergyman was evidently a necessity to such a bishop.
+To repudiate any such teaching was evidently a necessity to Mr. Wortle.
+Consequently there were differences, in all of which Mr. Wortle carried
+his own.  What the good bishop suffered no one probably knew except his
+wife and his domestic chaplain.  What Mr. Wortle enjoyed,--or Dr. Wortle,
+as he came to be called about this time,--was patent to all the county and
+all the diocese.  The sufferer died, not, let us hope, by means of the
+Doctor; and then came the third bishop.  He, too, had found himself
+obliged to say a word.  He was a man of the world,--wise, prudent, not
+given to interference or fault-finding, friendly by nature, one who
+altogether hated a quarrel, a bishop beyond all things determined to be
+the friend of his clergymen;--and yet he thought himself obliged to say a
+word.  There were matters in which Dr. Wortle affected a peculiarly
+anti-clerical mode of expression, if not of feeling.  He had been foolish
+enough to declare openly that he was in search of a curate who should have
+none of the "grace of godliness" about him.  He was wont to ridicule the
+piety of young men who devoted themselves entirely to their religious
+offices.  In a letter which he wrote he spoke of one youthful divine as "a
+conceited ass who had preached for forty minutes."  He not only disliked,
+but openly ridiculed all signs of a special pietistic bearing.  It was
+said of him that he had been heard to swear.  There can be no doubt that
+he made himself wilfully distasteful to many of his stricter brethren.
+Then it came to pass that there was a correspondence between him and the
+bishop as to that outspoken desire of his for a curate without the grace
+of godliness.  But even here Dr. Wortle was successful.  The management of
+his parish was pre-eminently good.  The parish school was a model.  The
+farmers went to church.  Dissenters there were none.  The people of Bowick
+believed thoroughly in their parson, and knew the comfort of having an
+open-handed, well-to-do gentleman in the village.  This third episcopal
+difficulty did not endure long.  Dr. Wortle knew his man, and was willing
+enough to be on good terms with his bishop so long as he was allowed to be
+in all things his own master.
+
+There had, too, been some fighting between Dr. Wortle and the world about
+his school.  He was, as I have said, a thoroughly generous man, but he
+required, himself, to be treated with generosity.  Any question as to the
+charges made by him as schoolmaster was unendurable.  He explained to all
+parents that he charged for each boy at the rate of two hundred a-year for
+board, lodging, and tuition, and that anything required for a boy's
+benefit or comfort beyond that ordinarily supplied would be charged for as
+an extra at such price as Dr. Wortle himself thought to be an equivalent.
+Now the popularity of his establishment no doubt depended in a great
+degree on the sufficiency and comfort of the good things of the world
+which he provided.  The beer was of the best; the boys were not made to
+eat fat; their taste in the selection of joints was consulted.  The
+morning coffee was excellent.  The cook was a great adept at cakes and
+puddings.  The Doctor would not himself have been satisfied unless
+everything had been plentiful, and everything of the best.  He would have
+hated a butcher who had attempted to seduce him with meat beneath the
+usual price.  But when he had supplied that which was sufficient according
+to his own liberal ideas, he did not give more without charging for it.
+Among his customers there had been a certain Honourable Mr. Stantiloup,
+and,--which had been more important,--an Honourable Mrs. Stantiloup.  Mrs.
+Stantiloup was a lady who liked all the best things which the world could
+supply, but hardly liked paying the best price.  Dr. Wortle's school was
+the best thing the world could supply of that kind, but then the price was
+certainly the very best.  Young Stantiloup was only eleven, and as there
+were boys at Bowick as old as seventeen,--for the school had not
+altogether maintained its old character as being merely preparatory,--Mrs.
+Stantiloup had thought that her boy should be admitted at a lower fee.
+The correspondence which had ensued had been unpleasant.  Then young
+Stantiloup had had the influenza, and Mrs. Stantiloup had sent her own
+doctor.  Champagne had been ordered, and carriage exercise.  Mr.
+Stantiloup had been forced by his wife to refuse to pay sums demanded for
+these undoubted extras.  Ten shillings a-day for a drive for a little boy
+seemed to her a great deal,--seemed so to Mrs. Stantiloup.  Ought not the
+Doctor's wife to have been proud to take out her little boy in her own
+carriage?  And then L2 10_s_. for champagne for the little boy!  It was
+monstrous.  Mr. Stantiloup remonstrated.  Dr. Wortle said that the little
+boy had better be taken away and the bill paid at once.  The little boy
+was taken away and the money was offered, short of L5.  The matter was
+instantly put into the hands of the Doctor's lawyer, and a suit commenced.
+The Doctor, of course, got his money, and then there followed an
+acrimonious correspondence in the "Times" and other newspapers.  Mrs.
+Stantiloup did her best to ruin the school, and many very eloquent
+passages were written not only by her or by her own special scribe, but by
+others who took the matter up, to prove that two hundred a-year was a
+great deal more than ought to be paid for the charge of a little boy
+during three quarters of the year.  But in the course of the next twelve
+months Dr. Wortle was obliged to refuse admittance to a dozen eligible
+pupils because he had not room for them.
+
+No doubt he had suffered during these contests,--suffered, that is, in
+mind.  There had been moments in which it seemed that the victory would be
+on the other side, that the forces congregated against him were too many
+for him, and that not being able to bend he would have to be broken; but
+in every case he had fought it out, and in every case he had conquered.
+He was now a prosperous man, who had achieved his own way, and had made
+all those connected with him feel that it was better to like him and obey
+him, than to dislike him and fight with him.  His curates troubled him as
+little as possible with the grace of godliness, and threw off as far as
+they could that zeal which is so dear to the youthful mind but which so
+often seems to be weak and flabby to their elders.  His ushers or
+assistants in the school fell in with his views implicitly, and were
+content to accept compensation in the shape of personal civilities.  It
+was much better to go shares with the Doctor in a joke than to have to
+bear his hard words.
+
+It is chiefly in reference to one of these ushers that our story has to be
+told.  But before we commence it, we must say a few more words as to the
+Doctor and his family.  Of his wife I have already spoken.  She was
+probably as happy a woman as you shall be likely to meet on a summer's
+day.  She had good health, easy temper, pleasant friends, abundant means,
+and no ambition.  She went nowhere without the Doctor, and whenever he
+went she enjoyed her share of the respect which was always shown to him.
+She had little or nothing to do with the school, the Doctor having many
+years ago resolved that though it became him as a man to work for his
+bread, his wife should not be a slave.  When the battles had been going
+on,--those between the Doctor and the bishops, and the Doctor and Mrs.
+Stantiloup, and the Doctor and the newspapers,--she had for a while been
+unhappy.  It had grieved her to have it insinuated that her husband was an
+atheist, and asserted that her husband was a cormorant; but his courage
+had sustained her, and his continual victories had taught her to believe
+at last that he was indomitable.
+
+They had one child, a daughter, Mary, of whom it was said in Bowick that
+she alone knew the length of the Doctor's foot.  It certainly was so that,
+if Mrs. Wortle wished to have anything done which was a trifle beyond her
+own influence, she employed Mary.  And if the boys collectively wanted to
+carry a point, they would "collectively" obtain Miss Wortle's aid.  But
+all this the Doctor probably knew very well; and though he was often
+pleased to grant favours thus asked, he did so because he liked the
+granting of favours when they had been asked with a proper degree of care
+and attention.  She was at the present time of the age in which fathers
+are apt to look upon their children as still children, while other men
+regard them as being grown-up young ladies.  It was now June, and in the
+approaching August she would be eighteen.  It was said of her that of the
+girls all round she was the prettiest; and indeed it would be hard to find
+a sweeter-favoured girl than Mary Wortle.  Her father had been all his
+life a man noted for the manhood of his face.  He had a broad forehead,
+with bright grey eyes,--eyes that had always a smile passing round them,
+though the smile would sometimes show that touch of irony which a smile
+may contain rather than the good-humour which it is ordinarily supposed to
+indicate.  His nose was aquiline, not hooky like a true bird's-beak, but
+with that bend which seems to give to the human face the clearest
+indication of individual will.  His mouth, for a man, was perhaps a little
+too small, but was admirably formed, as had been the chin with a deep
+dimple on it, which had now by the slow progress of many dinners become
+doubled in its folds.  His hair had been chestnut, but dark in its hue.
+It had now become grey, but still with the shade of the chestnut through
+it here and there.  He stood five feet ten in height, with small hands and
+feet.  He was now perhaps somewhat stout, but was still as upright on his
+horse as ever, and as well able to ride to hounds for a few fields when by
+chance the hunt came in the way of Bowick.  Such was the Doctor.  Mrs.
+Wortle was a pretty little woman, now over forty years of age, of whom it
+was said that in her day she had been the beauty of Windsor and those
+parts.  Mary Wortle took mostly after her father, being tall and comely,
+having especially her father's eyes; but still they who had known Mrs.
+Wortle as a girl declared that Mary had inherited also her mother's
+peculiar softness and complexion.
+
+For many years past none of the pupils had been received within the
+parsonage,--unless when received there as guests, which was of frequent
+occurrence.  All belonging to the school was built outside the glebe land,
+as a quite separate establishment, with a door opening from the parsonage
+garden to the school-yard.  Of this door the rule was that the Doctor and
+the gardener should have the only two keys; but the rule may be said to
+have become quite obsolete, as the door was never locked.  Sometimes the
+bigger boys would come through unasked,--perhaps in search of a game of
+lawn-tennis with Miss Wortle, perhaps to ask some favour of Mrs. Wortle,
+who always was delighted to welcome them, perhaps even to seek the Doctor
+himself, who never on such occasions would ask how it came to pass that
+they were on that side of the wall.  Sometimes Mrs. Wortle would send her
+housekeeper through for some of the little boys.  It would then be a good
+time for the little boys.  But this would generally be during the Doctor's
+absence.
+
+Here, on the school side of the wall, there was a separate establishment
+of servants, and a separate kitchen.  There was no sending backwards or
+forwards of food or of clothes,--unless it might be when some special
+delicacy was sent in if a boy were unwell.  For these no extra charge was
+ever made, as had been done in the case of young Stantiloup.  Then a
+strange doctor had come, and had ordered the wine and the carriage.  There
+was no extra charge for the kindly glasses of wine which used to be
+administered in quite sufficient plenty.
+
+Behind the school, and running down to the little river Pin, there is a
+spacious cricket-ground, and a court marked out for lawn-tennis.  Up close
+to the school is a racket-court.  No doubt a good deal was done to make
+the externals of the place alluring to those parents who love to think
+that their boys shall be made happy at school.  Attached to the school,
+forming part of the building, is a pleasant, well-built residence, with
+six or eight rooms, intended for the senior or classical assistant-master.
+It had been the Doctor's scheme to find a married gentleman to occupy this
+house, whose wife should receive a separate salary for looking after the
+linen and acting as matron to the school,--doing what his wife did till he
+became successful,--while the husband should be in orders and take part of
+the church duties as a second curate.  But there had been a difficulty in
+this.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE NEW USHER.
+
+THE Doctor had found it difficult to carry out the scheme described in the
+last chapter.  They indeed who know anything of such matters will be
+inclined to call it Utopian, and to say that one so wise in worldly
+matters as our schoolmaster should not have attempted to combine so many
+things.  He wanted a gentleman, a schoolmaster, a curate, a matron, and a
+lady,--we may say all in one.  Curates and ushers are generally unmarried.
+An assistant schoolmaster is not often in orders, and sometimes is not a
+gentleman.  A gentleman, when he is married, does not often wish to
+dispose of the services of his wife.  A lady, when she has a husband, has
+generally sufficient duties of her own to employ her, without undertaking
+others.  The scheme, if realised, would no doubt be excellent, but the
+difficulties were too many.  The Stantiloups, who lived about twenty miles
+off, made fun of the Doctor and his project; and the Bishop was said to
+have expressed himself as afraid that he would not be able to license as
+curate any one selected as usher to the school.  One attempt was made
+after another in vain;--but at last it was declared through the country
+far and wide that the Doctor had succeeded in this, as in every other
+enterprise that he had attempted.  There had come a Rev. Mr. Peacocke and
+his wife.  Six years since, Mr. Peacocke had been well known at Oxford as
+a Classic, and had become a Fellow of Trinity.  Then he had taken orders,
+and had some time afterwards married, giving up his Fellowship as a matter
+of course.  Mr. Peacocke, while living at Oxford, had been well known to a
+large Oxford circle, but he had suddenly disappeared from that world, and
+it had reached the ears of only a few of his more intimate friends that he
+had undertaken the duties of vice-president of a classical college at
+Saint Louis in the State of Missouri.  Such a disruption as this was for a
+time complete; but after five years Mr. Peacocke appeared again at Oxford,
+with a beautiful American wife, and the necessity of earning an income by
+his erudition.
+
+It would at first have seemed very improbable that Dr. Wortle should have
+taken into his school or into his parish a gentleman who had chosen the
+United States as a field for his classical labours.  The Doctor, whose
+mind was by no means logical, was a thoroughgoing Tory of the old school,
+and therefore considered himself bound to hate the name of a republic.  He
+hated rolling stones, and Mr. Peacocke had certainly been a rolling stone.
+He loved Oxford with all his heart, and some years since had been heard to
+say hard things of Mr. Peacocke, when that gentleman deserted his college
+for the sake of establishing himself across the Atlantic.  But he was one
+who thought that there should be a place of penitence allowed to those who
+had clearly repented of their errors; and, moreover, when he heard that
+Mr. Peacocke was endeavouring to establish himself in Oxford as a "coach"
+for undergraduates, and also that he was a married man without any
+encumbrance in the way of family, there seemed to him to be an additional
+reason for pardoning that American escapade.  Circumstances brought the
+two men together.  There were friends at Oxford who knew how anxious the
+Doctor was to carry out that plan of his in reference to an usher, a
+curate, and a matron, and here were the very things combined.  Mr.
+Peacocke's scholarship and power of teaching were acknowledged; he was
+already in orders; and it was declared that Mrs. Peacocke was undoubtedly
+a lady.  Many inquiries were made.  Many meetings took place.  Many
+difficulties arose.  But at last Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke came to Bowick, and
+took up their abode in the school.
+
+All the Doctor's requirements were not at once fulfilled.  Mrs. Peacocke's
+position was easily settled.  Mrs. Peacocke, who seemed to be a woman
+possessed of sterling sense and great activity, undertook her duties
+without difficulty.  But Mr. Peacocke would not at first consent to act as
+curate in the parish.  He did, however, after a time perform a portion of
+the Sunday services.  When he first came to Bowick he had declared that he
+would undertake no clerical duty.  Education was his profession, and to
+that he meant to devote himself exclusively.  Nor for the six or eight
+months of his sojourn did he go back from this; so that the Doctor may be
+said even still to have failed in carrying out his purpose.  But at last
+the new schoolmaster appeared in the pulpit of the parish church and
+preached a sermon.
+
+All that had passed in private conference between the Doctor and his
+assistant on the subject need not here be related.  Mr. Peacocke's
+aversion to do more than attend regularly at the church services as one of
+the parishioners had been very strong.  The Doctor's anxiety to overcome
+his assistant's reasoning had also been strong.  There had no doubt been
+much said between them.  Mr. Peacocke had been true to his principles,
+whatever those principles were, in regard to his appointment as a
+curate,--but it came to pass that he for some months preached regularly
+every Sunday in the parish church, to the full satisfaction of the
+parishioners.  For this he had accepted no payment, much to the Doctor's
+dissatisfaction.  Nevertheless, it was certainly the case that they who
+served the Doctor gratuitously never came by the worse of the bargain.
+
+Mr. Peacocke was a small wiry man, anything but robust in appearance, but
+still capable of great bodily exertion.  He was a great walker.  Labour in
+the school never seemed to fatigue him.  The addition of a sermon to
+preach every week seemed to make no difference to his energies in the
+school.  He was a constant reader, and could pass from one kind of mental
+work to another without fatigue.  The Doctor was a noted scholar, but it
+soon became manifest to the Doctor himself, and to the boys, that Mr.
+Peacocke was much deeper in scholarship than the Doctor.  Though he was a
+poor man, his own small classical library was supposed to be a repository
+of all that was known about Latin and Greek.  In fact, Mr. Peacocke grew
+to be a marvel; but of all the marvels about him, the thing most
+marvellous was the entire faith which the Doctor placed in him.  Certain
+changes even were made in the old-established "curriculum" of
+tuition,--and were made, as all the boys supposed, by the advice of Mr.
+Peacocke.  Mr. Peacocke was treated with a personal respect which almost
+seemed to imply that the two men were equal.  This was supposed by the
+boys to come from the fact that both the Doctor and the assistant had been
+Fellows of their colleges at Oxford; but the parsons and other gentry
+around could see that there was more in it than that.  Mr. Peacocke had
+some power about him which was potent over the Doctor's spirit.
+
+Mrs. Peacocke, in her line, succeeded almost as well.  She was a woman
+something over thirty years of age when she first came to Bowick, in the
+very pride and bloom of woman's beauty.  Her complexion was dark and
+brown,--so much so, that it was impossible to describe her colour
+generally by any other word.  But no clearer skin was ever given to a
+woman.  Her eyes were brown, and her eye-brows black, and perfectly
+regular.  Her hair was dark and very glossy, and always dressed as simply
+as the nature of a woman's head will allow.  Her features were regular,
+but with a great show of strength.  She was tall for a woman, but without
+any of that look of length under which female altitude sometimes suffers.
+She was strong and well made, and apparently equal to any labour to which
+her position might subject her.  When she had been at Bowick about three
+months, a boy's leg had been broken, and she had nursed him, not only with
+assiduity, but with great capacity.  The boy was the youngest son of the
+Marchioness of Altamont; and when Lady Altamont paid a second visit to
+Bowick, for the sake of taking her boy home as soon as he was fit to be
+moved, her ladyship made a little mistake.  With the sweetest and most
+caressing smile in the world, she offered Mrs. Peacocke a ten-pound note.
+"My dear madam," said Mrs. Peacocke, without the slightest reserve or
+difficulty, "it is so natural that you should do this, because you cannot
+of course understand my position; but it is altogether out of the
+question."  The Marchioness blushed, and stammered, and begged a hundred
+pardons.  Being a good-natured woman, she told the whole story to Mrs.
+Wortle.  "I would just as soon have offered the money to the Marchioness
+herself," said Mrs. Wortle, as she told it to her husband.  "I would have
+done it a deal sooner," said the Doctor.  "I am not in the least afraid of
+Lady Altamont; but I stand in awful dread of Mrs. Peacocke."  Nevertheless
+Mrs. Peacocke had done her work by the little lord's bed-side, just as
+though she had been a paid nurse.
+
+And so she felt herself to be.  Nor was she in the least ashamed of her
+position in that respect.  If there was aught of shame about her, as some
+people said, it certainly did not come from the fact that she was in the
+receipt of a salary for the performance of certain prescribed duties.
+Such remuneration was, she thought, as honourable as the Doctor's income;
+but to her American intelligence, the acceptance of a present of money
+from a Marchioness would have been a degradation.
+
+It certainly was said of her by some persons that there must have been
+something in her former life of which she was ashamed.  The Honourable
+Mrs. Stantiloup, to whom all the affairs of Bowick had been of consequence
+since her husband had lost his lawsuit, and who had not only heard much,
+but had inquired far and near about Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke, declared
+diligently among her friends, with many nods and winks, that there was
+something "rotten in the state of Denmark."  She did at first somewhat
+imprudently endeavour to spread a rumour abroad that the Doctor had become
+enslaved by the lady's beauty.  But even those hostile to Bowick could not
+accept this.  The Doctor certainly was not the man to put in jeopardy the
+respect of the world and his own standing for the beauty of any woman;
+and, moreover, the Doctor, as we have said before, was over fifty years of
+age.  But there soon came up another ground on which calumny could found a
+story.  It was certainly the case that Mrs. Peacocke had never accepted
+any hospitality from Mrs. Wortle or other ladies in the neighbourhood.  It
+reached the ears of Mrs. Stantiloup, first, that the ladies had called
+upon each other, as ladies are wont to do who intend to cultivate a mutual
+personal acquaintance, and then that Mrs. Wortle had asked Mrs. Peacocke
+to dinner.  But Mrs. Peacocke had refused not only that invitation, but
+subsequent invitations to the less ceremonious form of tea-drinking.
+
+All this had been true, and it had been true also,--though of this Mrs.
+Stantiloup had not heard the particulars,--that Mrs. Peacocke had
+explained to her neighbour that she did not intend to put herself on a
+visiting footing with any one.  "But why not, my dear?" Mrs. Wortle had
+said, urged to the argument by precepts from her husband.  "Why should you
+make yourself desolate here, when we shall be so glad to have you?"  "It
+is part of my life that it must be so," Mrs. Peacocke had answered.  "I am
+quite sure that the duties I have undertaken are becoming a lady; but I do
+not think that they are becoming to one who either gives or accepts
+entertainments."
+
+There had been something of the same kind between the Doctor and Mr.
+Peacocke.  "Why the mischief shouldn't you and your wife come and eat a
+bit of mutton, and drink a glass of wine, over at the Rectory, like any
+other decent people?"  I never believed that accusation against the Doctor
+in regard to swearing; but he was no doubt addicted to expletives in
+conversation, and might perhaps have indulged in a strong word or two, had
+he not been prevented by the sanctity of his orders.  "Perhaps I ought to
+say," replied Mr. Peacocke, "because we are not like any other decent
+people."  Then he went on to explain his meaning.  Decent people, he
+thought, in regard to social intercourse, are those who are able to give
+and take with ease among each other.  He had fallen into a position in
+which neither he nor his wife could give anything, and from which, though
+some might be willing to accept him, he would be accepted only, as it
+were, by special favour.  "Bosh!" ejaculated the Doctor.  Mr. Peacocke
+simply smiled.  He said it might be bosh, but that even were he inclined
+to relax his own views, his wife would certainly not relax hers.  So it
+came to pass that although the Doctor and Mr. Peacocke were really
+intimate, and that something of absolute friendship sprang up between the
+two ladies, when Mr. Peacocke had already been more than twelve months in
+Bowick neither had he nor Mrs. Peacocke broken bread in the Doctor's
+house.
+
+And yet the friendship had become strong.  An incident had happened early
+in the year which had served greatly to strengthen it.  At the school
+there was a little boy, just eleven years old, the only son of a Lady De
+Lawle, who had in early years been a dear friend to Mrs. Wortle.  Lady De
+Lawle was the widow of a baronet, and the little boy was the heir to a
+large fortune.  The mother had been most loath to part with her treasure.
+Friends, uncles, and trustees had declared that the old prescribed form of
+education for British aristocrats must be followed,--a t'other school,
+namely, then Eton, and then Oxford.  No; his mother might not go with him,
+first to one, and then to the other.  Such going and living with him would
+deprive his education of all the real salt.  Therefore Bowick was chosen
+as the t'other school, because Mrs. Wortle would be more like a mother to
+the poor desolate boy than any other lady.  So it was arranged, and the
+"poor desolate boy" became the happiest of the young pickles whom it was
+Mrs. Wortle's special province to spoil whenever she could get hold of
+them.
+
+Now it happened that on one beautiful afternoon towards the end of April,
+Mrs. Wortle had taken young De Lawle and another little boy with her over
+the foot-bridge which passed from the bottom of the parsonage garden to
+the glebe-meadow which ran on the other side of a little river, and with
+them had gone a great Newfoundland dog, who was on terms equally friendly
+with the inmates of the Rectory and the school.  Where this bridge passed
+across the stream the gardens and the field were on the same level.  But
+as the water ran down to the ground on which the school-buildings had been
+erected, there arose a steep bank over a bend in the river, or, rather,
+steep cliff; for, indeed, it was almost perpendicular, the force of the
+current as it turned at this spot having washed away the bank.  In this
+way it had come to pass that there was a precipitous fall of about a dozen
+feet from the top of the little cliff into the water, and that the water
+here, as it eddied round the curve, was black and deep, so that the bigger
+boys were wont to swim in it, arrangements for bathing having been made on
+the further or school side.  There had sometimes been a question whether a
+rail should not be placed for protection along the top of this cliff, but
+nothing of the kind had yet been done.  The boys were not supposed to play
+in this field, which was on the other side of the river, and could only be
+reached by the bridge through the parsonage garden.
+
+On this day young De Lawle and his friend and the dog rushed up the hill
+before Mrs. Wortle, and there began to romp, as was their custom.  Mary
+Wortle, who was one of the party, followed them, enjoining the children to
+keep away from the cliff.  For a while they did so, but of course
+returned.  Once or twice they were recalled and scolded, always asserting
+that the fault was altogether with Neptune.  It was Neptune that knocked
+them down and always pushed them towards the river.  Perhaps it was
+Neptune; but be that as it might, there came a moment very terrible to
+them all.  The dog in one of his gyrations came violently against the
+little boy, knocked him off his legs, and pushed him over the edge.  Mrs.
+Wortle, who had been making her way slowly up the hill, saw the fall,
+heard the splash, and fell immediately to the ground.
+
+Other eyes had also seen the accident.  The Doctor and Mr. Peacocke were
+at the moment walking together in the playgrounds at the school side of
+the brook.  When the boy fell they had paused in their walk, and were
+standing, the Doctor with his back to the stream, and the assistant with
+his face turned towards the cliff.  A loud exclamation broke from his lips
+as he saw the fall, but in a moment,--almost before the Doctor had
+realised the accident which had occurred,--he was in the water, and two
+minutes afterwards young De Lawle, drenched indeed, frightened, and out of
+breath, but in nowise seriously hurt, was out upon the bank; and Mr.
+Peacocke, drenched also, but equally safe, was standing over him, while
+the Doctor on his knees was satisfying himself that his little charge had
+received no fatal injury.  It need hardly be explained that such a
+termination as this to such an accident had greatly increased the good
+feeling with which Mr. Peacocke was regarded by all the inhabitants of the
+school and Rectory.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE MYSTERY.
+
+MR. PEACOCKE himself said that in this matter a great deal of fuss was
+made about nothing.  Perhaps it was so.  He got a ducking, but, being a
+strong swimmer, probably suffered no real danger.  The boy, rolling down
+three or four feet of bank, had then fallen down six or eight feet into
+deep water.  He might, no doubt, have been much hurt.  He might have
+struck against a rock and have been killed,--in which case Mr. Peacocke's
+prowess would have been of no avail.  But nothing of this kind happened.
+Little Jack De Lawle was put to bed in one of the Rectory bed-rooms, and
+was comforted with sherry-negus and sweet jelly.  For two days he rejoiced
+thoroughly in his accident, being freed from school, and subjected only to
+caresses.  After that he rebelled, having become tired of his bed.  But by
+that time his mother had been most unnecessarily summoned.  Unless she was
+wanted to examine the forlorn condition of his clothes, there was nothing
+that she could do.  But she came, and, of course, showered blessings on
+Mr. Peacocke's head,--while Mrs. Wortle went through to the school and
+showered blessings on Mrs. Peacocke.  What would they have done had the
+Peacockes not been there?
+
+"You must let them have their way, whether for good or bad," the Doctor
+said, when his assistant complained rather of the blessings,--pointing out
+at any rate their absurdity.  "One man is damned for ever, because, in the
+conscientious exercise of his authority, he gives a little boy a rap which
+happens to make a small temporary mark on his skin.  Another becomes a
+hero because, when in the equally conscientious performance of a duty, he
+gives himself a ducking.  I won't think you a hero; but, of course, I
+consider myself very fortunate to have had beside me a man younger than
+myself, and quick and ready at such an emergence.  Of course I feel
+grateful, but I shan't bother you by telling you so."
+
+But this was not the end of it.  Lady De Lawle declared that she could not
+be happy unless Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke would bring Jack home for the
+holidays to De Lawle Park.  Of course she carried her blessings up into
+Mrs. Peacocke's little drawing-room, and became quite convinced, as was
+Mrs. Wortle, that Mrs. Peacocke was in all respects a lady.  She heard of
+Mr. Peacocke's antecedents at Oxford, and expressed her opinion that they
+were charming people.  She could not be happy unless they would promise to
+come to De Lawle Park for the holidays.  Then Mrs. Peacocke had to explain
+that in her present circumstances she did not intend to visit anywhere.
+She was very much flattered, and delighted to think that the dear little
+boy was none the worse for his accident; but there must be an end of it.
+There was something in her manner, as she said this, which almost overawed
+Lady De Lawle.  She made herself, at any rate, understood, and no further
+attempt was made for the next six weeks to induce her or Mr. Peacocke to
+enter the Rectory dining-room.  But a good deal was said about Mr.
+Peacocke,--generally in his favour.
+
+Generally in his favour,--because he was a fine scholar, and could swim
+well.  His preaching perhaps did something for him, but the swimming did
+more.  But though there was so much said of good, there was something also
+of evil.  A man would not altogether refuse society for himself and his
+wife unless there were some cause for him to do so.  He and she must have
+known themselves to be unfit to associate with such persons as they would
+have met at De Lawle Park.  There was a mystery, and the mystery, when
+unravelled, would no doubt prove to be very deleterious to the character
+of the persons concerned.  Mrs. Stantiloup was quite sure that such must
+be the case.  "It might be very well," said Mrs. Stantiloup, "for Dr.
+Wortle to obtain the services of a well-educated usher for his school, but
+it became quite another thing when he put a man up to preach in the
+church, of whose life, for five years, no one knew anything."  Somebody
+had told her something as to the necessity of a bishop's authority for the
+appointment of a curate; but no one had strictly defined to her what a
+curate is.  She was, however, quite ready to declare that Mr. Peacocke had
+no business to preach in that pulpit, and that something very disagreeable
+would come of it.
+
+Nor was this feeling altogether confined to Mrs. Stantiloup, though it had
+perhaps originated with what she had said among her own friends.  "Don't
+you think it well you should know something of his life during these five
+years?"  This had been said to the Rector by the Bishop himself,--who
+probably would have said nothing of the kind had not these reports reached
+his ears.  But reports, when they reach a certain magnitude, and attain a
+certain importance, require to be noticed.
+
+So much in this world depends upon character that attention has to be paid
+to bad character even when it is not deserved.  In dealing with men and
+women, we have to consider what they believe, as well as what we believe
+ourselves.  The utility of a sermon depends much on the idea that the
+audience has of the piety of the man who preaches it.  Though the words of
+God should never have come with greater power from the mouth of man, they
+will come in vain if they be uttered by one who is known as a breaker of
+the Commandments;--they will come in vain from the mouth of one who is
+even suspected to be so.  To all this, when it was said to him by the
+Bishop in the kindest manner, Dr. Wortle replied that such suspicions were
+monstrous, unreasonable, and uncharitable.  He declared that they
+originated with that abominable virago, Mrs. Stantiloup.  "Look round the
+diocese," said the Bishop in reply to this, "and see if you can find a
+single clergyman acting in it, of the details of whose life for the last
+five years you know absolutely nothing."  Thereupon the Doctor said that he
+would make inquiry of Mr. Peacocke himself.  It might well be, he thought,
+that Mr. Peacocke would not like such inquiry, but the Doctor was quite
+sure that any story told to him would be true.  On returning home he found
+it necessary, or at any rate expedient, to postpone his questions for a
+few days.  It is not easy to ask a man what he has been doing with five
+years of his life, when the question implies a belief that these five
+years have been passed badly.  And it was understood that the questioning
+must in some sort apply to the man's wife.  The Doctor had once said to
+Mrs. Wortle that he stood in awe of Mrs. Peacocke.  There had certainly
+come upon him an idea that she was a lady with whom it would not be easy
+to meddle.  She was obedient, diligent, and minutely attentive to any wish
+that was expressed to her in regard to her duties; but it had become
+manifest to the Doctor that in all matters beyond the school she was
+independent, and was by no means subject to external influences.  She was
+not, for instance, very constant in her own attendance at church, and
+never seemed to feel it necessary to apologise for her absence.  The
+Doctor, in his many and familiar conversations with Mr. Peacocke, had not
+found himself able to allude to this; and he had observed that the husband
+did not often speak of his own wife unless it were on matters having
+reference to the school.  So it came to pass that he dreaded the
+conversation which he proposed to himself, and postponed it from day to
+day with a cowardice which was quite unusual to him.
+
+And now, O kind-hearted reader, I feel myself constrained, in the telling
+of this little story, to depart altogether from those principles of
+story-telling to which you probably have become accustomed, and to put the
+horse of my romance before the cart.  There is a mystery respecting Mr.
+and Mrs. Peacocke which, according to all laws recognised in such matters,
+ought not to be elucidated till, let us say, the last chapter but two, so
+that your interest should be maintained almost to the end,--so near the
+end that there should be left only space for those little arrangements
+which are necessary for the well-being, or perhaps for the evil-being, of
+our personages.  It is my purpose to disclose the mystery at once, and to
+ask you to look for your interest,--should you choose to go on with my
+chronicle,--simply in the conduct of my persons, during this disclosure,
+to others.  You are to know it all before the Doctor or the
+Bishop,--before Mrs. Wortle or the Hon. Mrs. Stantiloup, or Lady De Lawle.
+You are to know it all before the Peacockes become aware that it must
+necessarily be disclosed to any one.  It may be that when I shall have
+once told the mystery there will no longer be any room for interest in the
+tale to you.  That there are many such readers of novels I know.  I doubt
+whether the greater number be not such.  I am far from saying that the
+kind of interest of which I am speaking,--and of which I intend to deprive
+myself,--is not the most natural and the most efficacious.  What would the
+'Black Dwarf' be if every one knew from the beginning that he was a rich
+man and a baronet?--or 'The Pirate,' if all the truth about Norna of the
+Fitful-head had been told in the first chapter?  Therefore, put the book
+down if the revelation of some future secret be necessary for your
+enjoyment.  Our mystery is going to be revealed in the next paragraph,--in
+the next half-dozen words.  Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke were not man and wife.
+
+The story how it came to be so need not be very long;--nor will it, as I
+think, entail any great degree of odious criminality either upon the man
+or upon the woman.  At St. Louis Mrs. Peacocke had become acquainted with
+two brothers named Lefroy, who had come up from Louisiana, and had
+achieved for themselves characters which were by no means desirable.  They
+were sons of a planter who had been rich in extent of acres and number of
+slaves before the war of the Secession.  General Lefroy had been in those
+days a great man in his State, had held command during the war, and had
+been utterly ruined.  When the war was over the two boys,--then seventeen
+and sixteen years of age,--were old enough to remember and to regret all
+that they had lost, to hate the idea of Abolition, and to feel that the
+world had nothing left for them but what was to be got by opposition to
+the laws of the Union, which was now hateful to them.  They were both
+handsome, and, in spite of the sufferings of their State, an attempt had
+been made to educate them like gentlemen.  But no career of honour had
+been open to them, and they had fallen by degrees into dishonour,
+dishonesty, and brigandage.
+
+The elder of these, when he was still little more than a stripling, had
+married Ella Beaufort, the daughter of another ruined planter in his
+State.  She had been only sixteen when her father died, and not seventeen
+when she married Ferdinand Lefroy.  It was she who afterwards came to
+England under the name of Mrs. Peacocke.
+
+Mr. Peacocke was Vice-President of the College at Missouri when he first
+saw her, and when he first became acquainted with the two brothers, each
+of whom was called Colonel Lefroy.  Then there arose a great scandal in
+the city as to the treatment which the wife received from her husband.  He
+was about to go away South, into Mexico, with the view of pushing his
+fortune there with certain desperadoes, who were maintaining a perpetual
+war against the authorities of the United States on the borders of Texas,
+and he demanded that his wife should accompany him.  This she refused to
+do, and violence was used to force her.  Then it came to pass that certain
+persons in St. Louis interfered on her behalf, and among these was the
+Reverend Mr. Peacocke, the Vice-President of the College, upon whose
+feelings the singular beauty and dignified demeanour of the woman, no
+doubt, had had much effect.  The man failed to be powerful over his wife,
+and then the two brothers went away together.  The woman was left to
+provide for herself, and Mr. Peacocke was generous in the aid he gave to
+her in doing so.
+
+It may be understood that in this way an intimacy was created, but it must
+not be understood that the intimacy was of such a nature as to be
+injurious to the fair fame of the lady.  Things went on in this way for
+two years, during which Mrs. Lefroy's conduct drew down upon her
+reproaches from no one.  Then there came tidings that Colonel Lefroy had
+perished in making one of those raids in which the two brothers were
+continually concerned.  But which Colonel Lefroy had perished?  If it were
+the younger brother, that would be nothing to Mr. Peacocke.  If it were
+the elder, it would be everything.  If Ferdinand Lefroy were dead, he
+would not scruple at once to ask the woman to be his wife.  That which the
+man had done, and that which he had not done, had been of such a nature as
+to solve all bonds of affection.  She had already allowed herself to speak
+of the man as one whose life was a blight upon her own; and though there
+had been no word of out-spoken love from her lips to his ears, he thought
+that he might succeed if it could be made certain that Ferdinand Lefroy
+was no longer among the living.
+
+"I shall never know," she said in her misery.  "What I do hear I shall
+never believe.  How can one know anything as to what happens in a country
+such as that?"
+
+Then he took up his hat and staff, and, vice-president, professor, and
+clergyman as he was, started off for the Mexican border.  He did tell her
+that he was going, but barely told her.  "It's a thing that ought to be
+found out," he said, "and I want a turn of travelling.  I shall be away
+three months."  She merely bade God bless him, but said not a word to
+hinder or to encourage his going.
+
+He was gone just the three months which he had himself named, and then
+returned elate with his news.  He had seen the younger brother, Robert
+Lefroy, and had learnt from him that the elder Ferdinand had certainly
+been killed.  Robert had been most ungracious to him, having even on one
+occasion threatened his life; but there had been no doubt that he, Robert,
+was alive, and that Ferdinand had been killed by a party of United States
+soldiers.
+
+Then the clergyman had his reward, and was accepted by the widow with a
+full and happy heart.  Not only had her release been complete, but so was
+her present joy; and nothing seemed wanting to their happiness during the
+six first months after their union.  Then one day, all of a sudden,
+Ferdinand Lefroy was standing within her little drawing-room at the
+College of St. Louis.
+
+Dead?  Certainly he was not dead!  He did not believe that any one had
+said that he was dead!  She might be lying or not,--he did not care; he,
+Peacocke, certainly had lied;--so said the Colonel.  He did not believe
+that Peacocke had ever seen his brother Robert.  Robert was dead,--must
+have been dead, indeed, before the date given for that interview.  The
+woman was a bigamist,--that is, if any second marriage had ever been
+perpetrated.  Probably both had wilfully agreed to the falsehood.  For
+himself he should resolve at once what steps he meant to take.  Then he
+departed, it being at that moment after nine in the evening.  In the
+morning he was gone again, and from that moment they had never either
+heard of him or seen him.
+
+How was it to be with them?  They could have almost brought themselves to
+think it a dream, were it not that others besides themselves had seen the
+man, and known that Colonel Ferdinand Lefroy had been in St. Louis.  Then
+there came to him an idea that even she might disbelieve the words which
+he had spoken;--that even she might think his story to have been false.
+But to this she soon put an end.  "Dearest," she said, "I never knew a
+word that was true to come from his mouth, or a word that was false from
+yours."
+
+Should they part?  There is no one who reads this but will say that they
+should have parted.  Every day passed together as man and wife must be a
+falsehood and a sin.  There would be absolute misery for both in
+parting;--but there is no law from God or man entitling a man to escape
+from misery at the expense of falsehood and sin.  Though their hearts
+might have burst in the doing of it, they should have parted.  Though she
+would have been friendless, alone, and utterly despicable in the eyes of
+the world, abandoning the name which she cherished, as not her own, and
+going back to that which she utterly abhorred, still she should have done
+it.  And he, resolving, as no doubt he would have done under any
+circumstances, that he must quit the city of his adoption,--he should have
+left her with such material sustenance as her spirit would have enabled
+her to accept, should have gone his widowed way, and endured as best he
+might the idea that he had left the woman whom he loved behind, in the
+desert, all alone!  That he had not done so the reader is aware.  That he
+had lived a life of sin,--that he and she had continued in one great
+falsehood,--is manifest enough.  Mrs. Stantiloup, when she hears it all,
+will have her triumph.  Lady De Lawle's soft heart will rejoice because
+that invitation was not accepted.  The Bishop will be unutterably shocked;
+but, perhaps, to the good man there will be some solace in the feeling
+that he had been right in his surmises.  How the Doctor bore it this story
+is intended to tell,--and how also Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke bore it, when the
+sin and the falsehood were made known to all the world around them.  The
+mystery has at any rate been told, and they who feel that on this account
+all hope of interest is at an end had better put down the book.
+
+
+
+Part II.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE DOCTOR ASKS HIS QUESTION.
+
+THE Doctor, instigated by the Bishop, had determined to ask some questions
+of Mr. Peacocke as to his American life.  The promise had been given at
+the Palace, and the Doctor, as he returned home, repented himself in that
+he had made it.  His lordship was a gossip, as bad as an old woman, as bad
+as Mrs. Stantiloup, and wanted to know things in which a man should feel
+no interest.  So said the Doctor to himself.  What was it to him, the
+Bishop, or to him, the Doctor, what Mr. Peacocke had been doing in
+America?  The man's scholarship was patent, his morals were unexceptional,
+his capacity for preaching undoubted, his peculiar fitness for his place
+at Bowick unquestionable.  Who had a right to know more?  That the man had
+been properly educated at Oxford, and properly ordained on entering his
+Fellowship, was doubted by no man.  Even if there had been some temporary
+backslidings in America,--which might be possible, for which of us have
+not backslided at some time of our life?--why should they be raked up?
+There was an uncharitableness in such a proceeding altogether opposed to
+the Doctor's view of life.  He hated severity.  It may almost be said that
+he hated that state of perfection which would require no pardon.  He was
+thoroughly human, quite content with his own present position,
+anticipating no millennium for the future of the world, and probably, in
+his heart, looking forward to heaven as simply the better alternative when
+the happiness of this world should be at an end.  He himself was in no
+respect a wicked man, and yet a little wickedness was not distasteful to
+him.
+
+And he was angry with himself in that he had made such a promise.  It had
+been a rule of life with him never to take advice.  The Bishop had his
+powers, within which he, as Rector of Bowick, would certainly obey the
+Bishop; but it had been his theory to oppose his Bishop, almost more
+readily than any one else, should the Bishop attempt to exceed his power.
+The Bishop had done so in giving this advice, and yet he had promised.  He
+was angry with himself, but did not on that account think that the promise
+should be evaded.  Oh no!  Having said that he would do it, he would do
+it.  And having said that he would do it, the sooner that he did it the
+better.  When three or four days had passed by, he despised himself
+because he had not yet made for himself a fit occasion.  "It is such a
+mean, sneaking thing to do," he said to himself.  But still it had to be
+done.
+
+It was on a Saturday afternoon that he said this to himself, as he
+returned back to the parsonage garden from the cricket-ground, where he
+had left Mr. Peacocke and the three other ushers playing cricket with ten
+or twelve of the bigger boys of the school.  There was a French master, a
+German master, a master for arithmetic and mathematics with the adjacent
+sciences, besides Mr. Peacocke, as assistant classical master.  Among them
+Mr. Peacocke was _facile princeps_ in rank and supposed ability; but they
+were all admitted to the delights of the playground.  Mr. Peacocke, in
+spite of those years of his spent in America where cricket could not have
+been familiar to him, remembered well his old pastime, and was quite an
+adept at the game.  It was ten thousand pities that a man should be
+disturbed by unnecessary questionings who could not only teach and preach,
+but play cricket also.  But nevertheless it must be done.  When,
+therefore, the Doctor entered his own house, he went into his study and
+wrote a short note to his assistant;--
+
+
+"MY DEAR PEACOCKE,--Could you come over and see me in my study this
+evening for half an hour?  I have a question or two which I wish to ask
+you.  Any hour you may name will suit me after eight.--Yours most
+sincerely,
+
+"JEFFREY WORTLE."
+
+
+In answer to this there came a note to say that at half-past eight Mr.
+Peacocke would be with the Doctor.
+
+At half-past eight Mr. Peacocke came.  He had fancied, on reading the
+Doctor's note, that some further question would be raised as to money.
+The Doctor had declared that he could no longer accept gratuitous clerical
+service in the parish, and had said that he must look out for some one
+else if Mr. Peacocke could not oblige him by allowing his name to be
+referred in the usual way to the Bishop.  He had now determined to say, in
+answer to this, that the school gave him enough to do, and that he would
+much prefer to give up the church;--although he would always be happy to
+take a part occasionally if he should be wanted.  The Doctor had been
+sitting alone for the last quarter of an hour when his assistant entered
+the room, and had spent the time in endeavouring to arrange the
+conversation that should follow.  He had come at last to a conclusion.  He
+would let Mr. Peacocke know exactly what had passed between himself and
+the Bishop, and would then leave it to his usher either to tell his own
+story as to his past life, or to abstain from telling it.  He had promised
+to ask the question, and he would ask it; but he would let the man judge
+for himself whether any answer ought to be given.
+
+"The Bishop has been bothering me about you, Peacocke," he said, standing
+up with his back to the fireplace, as soon as the other man had shut the
+door behind him.  The Doctor's face was always expressive of his inward
+feelings, and at this moment showed very plainly that his sympathies were
+not with the Bishop.
+
+"I'm sorry that his lordship should have troubled himself," said the
+other, "as I certainly do not intend to take any part in his diocese."
+
+"We'll sink that for the present," said the Doctor.  "I won't let that be
+mixed up with what I have got to say just now.  You have taken a certain
+part in the diocese already, very much to my satisfaction.  I hope it may
+be continued; but I won't bother about that now.  As far as I can see, you
+are just the man that would suit me as a colleague in the parish."  Mr.
+Peacocke bowed, but remained silent.  "The fact is," continued the Doctor,
+"that certain old women have got hold of the Bishop, and made him feel
+that he ought to answer their objections.  That Mrs. Stantiloup has a
+tongue as loud as the town-crier's bell."
+
+"But what has Mrs. Stantiloup to say about me?"
+
+"Nothing, except in so far as she can hit me through you."
+
+"And what does the Bishop say?"
+
+"He thinks that I ought to know something of your life during those five
+years you were in America."
+
+"I think so also," said Mr. Peacocke.
+
+"I don't want to know anything for myself.  As far as I am concerned, I am
+quite satisfied.  I know where you were educated, how you were ordained,
+and I can feel sure, from your present efficiency, that you cannot have
+wasted your time.  If you tell me that you do not wish to say anything, I
+shall be contented, and I shall tell the Bishop that, as far as I am
+concerned, there must be an end of it."
+
+"And what will he do?" asked Mr. Peacocke.
+
+"Well; as far as the curacy is concerned, of course he can refuse his
+licence."
+
+"I have not the slightest intention of applying to his lordship for a
+licence."
+
+This the usher said with a tone of self-assertion which grated a little on
+the Doctor's ear, in spite of his good-humour towards the speaker.  "I
+don't want to go into that," he said.  "A man never can say what his
+intentions may be six months hence."
+
+"But if I were to refuse to speak of my life in America," said Mr.
+Peacocke, "and thus to decline to comply with what I must confess would be
+no more than a rational requirement on your part, how then would it be
+with myself and my wife in regard to the school?"
+
+"It would make no difference whatever," said the Doctor.
+
+"There is a story to tell," said Mr. Peacocke, very slowly.
+
+"I am sure that it cannot be to your disgrace."
+
+"I do not say that it is,--nor do I say that it is not.  There may be
+circumstances in which a man may hardly know whether he has done right or
+wrong.  But this I do know,--that, had I done otherwise, I should have
+despised myself.  I could not have done otherwise and have lived."
+
+"There is no man in the world," said the Doctor, earnestly, "less anxious
+to pry into the secrets of others than I am.  I take things as I find
+them.  If the cook sends me up a good dish I don't care to know how she
+made it.  If I read a good book, I am not the less gratified because there
+may have been something amiss with the author."
+
+"You would doubt his teaching," said Mr. Peacocke, "who had gone astray
+himself."
+
+"Then I must doubt all human teaching, for all men have gone astray.  You
+had better hold your tongue about the past, and let me tell those who ask
+unnecessary questions to mind their own business."
+
+"It is very odd, Doctor," said Mr. Peacocke, "that all this should have
+come from you just now."
+
+"Why odd just now?"
+
+"Because I had been turning it in my mind for the last fortnight whether I
+ought not to ask you as a favour to listen to the story of my life.  That
+I must do so before I could formally accept the curacy I had determined.
+But that only brought me to the resolution of refusing the office.  I
+think,--I think that, irrespective of the curacy, it ought to be told.
+But I have not quite made up my mind."
+
+"Do not suppose that I am pressing you."
+
+"Oh no; nor would your pressing me influence me.  Much as I owe to your
+undeserved kindness and forbearance, I am bound to say that.  Nothing can
+influence me in the least in such a matter but the well-being of my wife,
+and my own sense of duty.  And it is a matter in which I can unfortunately
+take counsel from no one.  She, and she alone, besides myself, knows the
+circumstances, and she is so forgetful of herself that I can hardly ask
+her for an opinion."
+
+The Doctor by this time had no doubt become curious.  There was a
+something mysterious with which he would like to become acquainted.  He
+was by no means a philosopher, superior to the ordinary curiosity of
+mankind.  But he was manly, and even at this moment remembered his former
+assurances.  "Of course," said he, "I cannot in the least guess what all
+this is about.  For myself I hate secrets.  I haven't a secret in the
+world.  I know nothing of myself which you mightn't know too for all that
+I cared.  But that is my good fortune rather than my merit.  It might well
+have been with me as it is with you; but, as a rule, I think that where
+there is a secret it had better be kept.  No one, at any rate, should
+allow it to be wormed out of him by the impertinent assiduity of others.
+If there be anything affecting your wife which you do not wish all the
+world on this side of the water to know, do not tell it to any one on this
+side of the water."
+
+"There is something affecting my wife that I do not wish all the world to
+know."
+
+"Then tell it to no one," said Dr. Wortle, authoritatively.
+
+"I will tell you what I will do," said Mr. Peacocke; "I will take a week
+to think of it, and then I will let you know whether I will tell it or
+whether I will not; and if I tell it I will let you know also how far I
+shall expect you to keep my secret, and how far to reveal it.  I think the
+Bishop will be entitled to know nothing about me unless I ask to be
+recognised as one of the clergy of his diocese."
+
+"Certainly not; certainly not," said the Doctor.  And then the interview
+was at an end.
+
+Mr. Peacocke, when he went away from the Rectory, did not at once return
+to his own house, but went off for a walk alone.  It was now nearly
+midsummer, and there was broad daylight till ten o'clock.  It was after
+nine when he left the Doctor's, but still there was time for a walk which
+he knew well through the fields, which would take him round by Bowick
+Wood, and home by a path across the squire's park and by the church.  An
+hour would do it, and he wanted an hour to collect his thoughts before he
+should see his wife, and discuss with her, as he would be bound to do, all
+that had passed between him and the Doctor.  He had said that he could not
+ask her advice.  In this there had been much of truth.  But he knew also
+that he would do nothing as to which he had not received at any rate her
+assent.  She, for his sake, would have annihilated herself, had that been
+possible.  Again and again, since that horrible apparition had showed
+itself in her room at St. Louis, she had begged that she might leave
+him,--not on her own behalf, not from any dread of the crime that she was
+committing, not from shame in regard to herself should her secret be found
+out, but because she felt herself to be an impediment to his career in the
+world.  As to herself, she had no pricks of conscience.  She had been true
+to the man,--brutal, abominable as he had been to her,--until she had in
+truth been made to believe that he was dead; and even when he had
+certainly been alive,--for she had seen him,--he had only again seen her,
+again to desert her.  Duty to him she could owe never.  There was no sting
+of conscience with her in that direction.  But to the other man she owed,
+as she thought, everything that could be due from a woman to a man.  He
+had come within her ken, and had loved her without speaking of his love.
+He had seen her condition, and had sympathised with her fully.  He had
+gone out, with his life in his hand,--he, a clergyman, a quiet man of
+letters,--to ascertain whether she was free; and finding her, as he
+believed, to be free, he had returned to take her to his heart, and to
+give her all that happiness which other women enjoy, but which she had
+hitherto only seen from a distance.  Then the blow had come.  It was
+necessary, it was natural, that she should be ruined by such a blow.
+Circumstances had ruined her.  That fate had betaken her which so often
+falls upon a woman who trusts herself and her life to a man.  But why
+should he fall also with her fall?  There was still a career before him.
+He might be useful; he might be successful; he might be admired.
+Everything might still be open to him,--except the love of another woman.
+As to that, she did not doubt his truth.  Why should he be doomed to drag
+her with him as a log tied to his foot, seeing that a woman with a
+misfortune is condemned by the general voice of the world, whereas for a
+man to have stumbled is considered hardly more than a matter of course?
+She would consent to take from him the means of buying her bread; but it
+would be better,--she had said,--that she should eat it on her side of the
+water, while he might earn it on the other.
+
+We know what had come of these arguments.  He had hitherto never left her
+for a moment since that man had again appeared before their eyes.  He had
+been strong in his resolution.  If it were a crime, then he would be a
+criminal.  If it were a falsehood, then would he be a liar.  As to the
+sin, there had no doubt been some divergence of opinion between him and
+her.  The teaching that he had undergone in his youth had been that with
+which we, here, are all more or less acquainted, and that had been
+strengthened in him by the fact of his having become a clergyman.  She had
+felt herself more at liberty to proclaim to herself a gospel of her own
+for the guidance of her own soul.  To herself she had never seemed to be
+vicious or impure, but she understood well that he was not equally free
+from the bonds which religion had imposed upon him.  For his sake,--for
+his sake, it would be better that she should be away from him.
+
+All this was known to him accurately, and all this had to be considered by
+him as he walked across the squire's park in the gloaming of the evening.
+No doubt,--he now said to himself,--the Doctor should have been made
+acquainted with his condition before he or she had taken their place at
+the school.  Reticence under such circumstances had been a lie.  Against
+his conscience there had been many pricks.  Living in his present
+condition he certainly should not have gone up into that pulpit to preach
+the Word of God.  Though he had been silent, he had known that the evil
+and the deceit would work round upon him.  But now what should he do?
+There was only one thing on which he was altogether decided;--nothing
+should separate them.  As he had said so often before, he said again
+now,--"If there be sin, let it be sin."  But this was clear to him,--were
+he to give Dr. Wortle a true history of what had happened to him in
+America, then must he certainly leave Bowick.  And this was equally
+certain, that before telling his tale, he must make known his purpose to
+his wife.
+
+But as he entered his own house he had determined that he would tell the
+Doctor everything.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+"THEN WE MUST GO."
+
+"I THOUGHT you were never going to have done with that old Jupiter," said
+Mrs. Peacocke, as she began at that late hour of the evening to make tea
+for herself and her husband.
+
+"Why have you waited for me?"
+
+"Because I like company.  Did you ever know me go to tea without you when
+there was a chance of your coming?  What has Jupiter been talking about
+all this time?"
+
+"Jupiter has not been talking all this time.  Jupiter talked only for half
+an hour.  Jupiter is a very good fellow."
+
+"I always thought so.  Otherwise I should never have consented to have
+been one of his satellites, or have been contented to see you doing chief
+moon.  But you have been with him an hour and a half."
+
+"Since I left him I have walked all round by Bowick Lodge.  I had
+something to think of before I could talk to you,--something to decide
+upon, indeed, before I could return to the house."
+
+"What have you decided?" she asked.  Her voice was altogether changed.
+Though she was seated in her chair and had hardly moved, her appearance
+and her carriage of herself were changed.  She still held the cup in her
+hand which she had been about to fill, but her face was turned towards
+his, and her large brown speaking eyes were fixed upon him.
+
+"Let me have my tea," he said, "and then I will tell you."  While he
+drank his tea she remained quite quiet, not touching her own, but waiting
+patiently till it should suit him to speak.  "Ella," he said, "I must tell
+it all to Dr. Wortle."
+
+"Why, dearest?"  As he did not answer at once, she went on with her
+question.  "Why now more than before?"
+
+"Nay, it is not now more than before.  As we have let the before go by, we
+can only do it now."
+
+"But why at all, dear?  Has the argument, which was strong when we came,
+lost any of its force?"
+
+"It should have had no force.  We should not have taken the man's good
+things, and have subjected him to the injury which may come to him by our
+bad name."
+
+"Have we not given him good things in return?"
+
+"Not the good things which he had a right to expect,--not that
+respectability which is all the world to such an establishment as this."
+
+"Let me go," she said, rising from her chair and almost shrieking.
+
+"Nay, Ella, nay; if you and I cannot talk as though we were one flesh,
+almost with one soul between us, as though that which is done by one is
+done by both, whether for weal or woe,--if you and I cannot feel ourselves
+to be in a boat together either for swimming or for sinking, then I think
+that no two persons on this earth ever can be bound together after that
+fashion.  'Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will
+lodge.  The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee
+and me."' Then she rose from her chair, and flinging herself on her knees
+at his feet, buried her face in his lap.  "Ella," he said, "the only
+injury you can do me is to speak of leaving me.  And it is an injury which
+is surely unnecessary because you cannot carry it beyond words.  Now, if
+you will sit up and listen to me, I will tell you what passed between me
+and the Doctor."  Then she raised herself from the ground and took her seat
+at the tea-table, and listened patiently as he began his tale.  "They have
+been talking about us here in the county."
+
+"Who has found it necessary to talk about one so obscure as I?"
+
+"What does it matter who they might be?  The Doctor in his kindly
+wrath,--for he is very wroth,--mentions this name and the other.  What
+does it matter?  Obscurity itself becomes mystery, and mystery of course
+produces curiosity.  It was bound to be so.  It is not they who are in
+fault, but we.  If you are different from others, of course you will be
+inquired into."
+
+"Am I so different?"
+
+"Yes;--different in not eating the Doctor's dinners when they are offered
+to you; different in not accepting Lady De Lawle's hospitality; different
+in contenting yourself simply with your duties and your husband.  Of
+course we are different.  How could we not be different?  And as we are
+different, so of course there will be questions and wonderings, and that
+sifting and searching which always at last finds out the facts.  The
+Bishop says that he knows nothing of my American life."
+
+"Why should he want to know anything?"
+
+"Because I have been preaching in one of his churches.  It is
+natural;--natural that the mothers of the boys should want to know
+something.  The Doctor says that he hates secrets.  So do I."
+
+"Oh, my dearest!"
+
+"A secret is always accompanied by more or less of fear, and produces more
+or less of cowardice.  But it can no more be avoided than a sore on the
+flesh or a broken bone.  Who would not go about, with all his affairs such
+as the world might know, if it were possible?  But there come gangrenes in
+the heart, or perhaps in the pocket.  Wounds come, undeserved wounds, as
+those did to you, my darling; but wounds which may not be laid bare to all
+eyes.  Who has a secret because he chooses it?"
+
+"But the Bishop?"
+
+"Well,--yes, the Bishop.  The Bishop has told the Doctor to examine me,
+and the Doctor has done it.  I give him the credit of saying that the task
+has been most distasteful to him.  I do him the justice of acknowledging
+that he has backed out of the work he had undertaken.  He has asked the
+question, but has said in the same breath that I need not answer it unless
+I like."
+
+"And you?  You have not answered it yet?"
+
+"No; I have answered nothing as yet.  But I have, I think, made up my mind
+that the question must be answered."
+
+"That everything should be told?"
+
+"Everything,--to him.  My idea is to tell everything to him, and to leave
+it to him to decide what should be done.  Should he refuse to repeat the
+story any further, and then bid us go away from Bowick, I should think
+that his conduct had been altogether straightforward and not
+uncharitable."
+
+"And you,--what would you do then?"
+
+"I should go.  What else?"
+
+"But whither?"
+
+"Ah! on that we must decide.  He would be friendly with me.  Though he
+might think it necessary that I should leave Bowick, he would not turn
+against me violently."
+
+"He could do nothing."
+
+"I think he would assist me rather.  He would help me, perhaps, to find
+some place where I might still earn my bread by such skill as I
+possess;--where I could do so without dragging in aught of my domestic
+life, as I have been forced to do here."
+
+"I have been a curse to you," exclaimed the unhappy wife.
+
+"My dearest blessing," he said.  "That which you call a curse has come
+from circumstances which are common to both of us.  There need be no more
+said about it.  That man has been a source of terrible trouble to us.  The
+trouble must be discussed from time to time, but the necessity of enduring
+it may be taken for granted."
+
+"I cannot be a philosopher such as you are," she said.
+
+"There is no escape from it.  The philosophy is forced upon us.  When an
+evil thing is necessary, there remains only the consideration how it may
+be best borne."
+
+"You must tell him, then?"
+
+"I think so.  I have a week to consider of it; but I think so.  Though he
+is very kind at this moment in giving me the option, and means what he
+says in declaring that I shall remain even though I tell him nothing, yet
+his mind would become uneasy, and he would gradually become discontented.
+Think how great is his stake in the school!  How would he feel towards me,
+were its success to be gradually diminished because he kept a master here
+of whom people believed some unknown evil?"
+
+"There has been no sign of any such falling off?"
+
+"There has been no time for it.  It is only now that people are beginning
+to talk.  Had nothing of the kind been said, had this Bishop asked no
+questions, had we been regarded as people simply obscure, to whom no
+mystery attached itself, the thing might have gone on; but as it is, I am
+bound to tell him the truth."
+
+"Then we must go?"
+
+"Probably."
+
+"At once?"
+
+"When it has been so decided, the sooner the better.  How could we endure
+to remain here when our going shall be desired?"
+
+"Oh no!"
+
+"We must flit, and again seek some other home.  Though he should keep our
+secret,--and I believe he will if he be asked,--it will be known that
+there is a secret, and a secret of such a nature that its circumstances
+have driven us hence.  If I could get literary work in London, perhaps we
+might live there."
+
+"But how,--how would you set about it?  The truth is, dearest, that for
+work such as yours you should either have no wife at all, or else a wife
+of whom you need not be ashamed to speak the whole truth before the
+world."
+
+"What is the use of it?" he said, rising from his chair as in anger.  "Why
+go back to all that which should be settled between us, as fixed by fate?
+Each of us has given to the other all that each has to give, and the
+partnership is complete.  As far as that is concerned, I at any rate am
+contented."
+
+"Ah, my darling!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms round his neck.
+
+"Let there be an end to distinctions and differences, which, between you
+and me, can have no effect but to increase our troubles.  You are a woman,
+and I am a man; and therefore, no doubt, your name, when brought in
+question, is more subject to remark than mine,--as is my name, being that
+of a clergyman, more subject to remark than that of one not belonging to a
+sacred profession.  But not on that account do I wish to unfrock myself;
+nor certainly on that account do I wish to be deprived of my wife.  For
+good or bad, it has to be endured together; and expressions of regret as
+to that which is unavoidable, only aggravate our trouble."  After that, he
+seated himself, and took up a book as though he were able at once to carry
+off his mind to other matters.  She probably knew that he could not do so,
+but she sat silent by him for a while, till he bade her take herself to
+bed, promising that he would follow without delay.
+
+For three days nothing further was said between them on the subject, nor
+was any allusion made to it between the Doctor and his assistant.  The
+school went on the same as ever, and the intercourse between the two men
+was unaltered as to its general mutual courtesy.  But there did
+undoubtedly grow in the Doctor's mind a certain feverish feeling of
+insecurity.  At any rate, he knew this, that there was a mystery, that
+there was something about the Peacockes,--something referring especially
+to Mrs. Peacocke,--which, if generally known, would be held to be
+deleterious to their character.  So much he could not help deducing from
+what the man had already told him.  No doubt he had undertaken, in his
+generosity, that although the man should decline to tell his secret, no
+alteration should be made as to the school arrangements; but he became
+conscious that in so promising he had in some degree jeopardised the
+well-being of the school.  He began to whisper to himself that persons in
+such a position as that filled by this Mr. Peacocke and his wife should
+not be subject to peculiar remarks from ill-natured tongues.  A weapon was
+afforded by such a mystery to the Stantiloups of the world, which the
+Stantiloups would be sure to use with all their virulence.  To such an
+establishment as his school, respectability was everything.  Credit, he
+said to himself, is a matter so subtle in its essence, that, as it may be
+obtained almost without reason, so, without reason, may it be made to melt
+away.  Much as he liked Mr. Peacocke, much as he approved of him, much as
+there was in the man of manliness and worth which was absolutely dear to
+him,--still he was not willing to put the character of his school in peril
+for the sake of Mr. Peacocke.  Were he to do so, he would be neglecting a
+duty much more sacred than any he could owe to Mr. Peacocke.  It was thus
+that, during these three days, he conversed with himself on the subject,
+although he was able to maintain outwardly the same manner and the same
+countenance as though all things were going well between them.  When they
+parted after the interview in the study, the Doctor, no doubt, had so
+expressed himself as rather to dissuade his usher from telling his secret
+than to encourage him to do so.  He had been free in declaring that the
+telling of the secret should make no difference in his assistant's
+position at Bowick.  But in all that, he had acted from his habitual
+impulse.  He had since told himself that the mystery ought to be
+disclosed.  It was not right that his boys should be left to the charge of
+one who, however competent, dared not speak of his own antecedents.  It
+was thus he thought of the matter, after consideration.  He must wait, of
+course, till the week should be over before he made up his mind to
+anything further.
+
+"So Peacocke isn't going to take the curacy?"
+
+This was said to the Doctor by Mr. Pearson, the squire, in the course of
+those two or three days of which we are speaking.  Mr. Pearson was an old
+gentleman, who did not live often at Bowick, being compelled, as he always
+said, by his health, to spend the winter and spring of every year in
+Italy, and the summer months by his family in London.  In truth, he did
+not much care for Bowick, but had always been on good terms with the
+Doctor, and had never opposed the school.  Mr. Pearson had been good also
+as to Church matters,--as far as goodness can be shown by generosity,--and
+had interested himself about the curates.  So it had come to pass that the
+Doctor did not wish to snub his neighbour when the question was asked.  "I
+rather think not," said the Doctor.  "I fear I shall have to look out for
+some one else."  He did not prolong the conversation; for, though he wished
+to be civil, he did not wish to be communicative.  Mr. Pearson had shown
+his parochial solicitude, and did not trouble himself with further
+questions.
+
+"So Mr. Peacocke isn't going to take the curacy?"  This, the very same
+question in the very same words, was put to the Doctor on the next morning
+by the vicar of the next parish.  The Rev. Mr. Puddicombe, a clergyman
+without a flaw who did his duty excellently in every station of life, was
+one who would preach a sermon or take a whole service for a brother parson
+in distress, and never think of reckoning up that return sermons or return
+services were due to him,--one who gave dinners, too, and had pretty
+daughters;--but still our Doctor did not quite like him.  He was a little
+too pious, and perhaps given to ask questions.  "So Mr. Peacocke isn't
+going to take the curacy?"
+
+There was a certain animation about the asking of this question by Mr.
+Puddicombe very different from Mr. Pearson's listless manner.  It was
+clear to the Doctor that Mr. Puddicombe wanted to know.  It seemed to the
+Doctor that something of condemnation was implied in the tone of the
+question, not only against Mr. Peacocke, but against himself also, for
+having employed Mr. Peacocke.  "Upon my word I can't tell you," he said,
+rather crossly.
+
+"I thought that it had been all settled.  I heard that it was decided."
+
+"Then you have heard more than I have."
+
+"It was the Bishop told me."
+
+Now it certainly was the case that in that fatal conversation which had
+induced the Doctor to interrogate Mr. Peacocke about his past life, the
+Doctor himself had said that he intended to look out for another curate.
+He probably did not remember that at the moment.  "I wish the Bishop would
+confine himself to asserting things that he knows," said the Doctor,
+angrily.
+
+"I am sure the Bishop intends to do so," said Mr. Puddicombe, very
+gravely.  "But I apologise.  I had not intended to touch a subject on
+which there may perhaps be some reserve.  I was only going to tell you of
+an excellent young man of whom I have heard.  But, good morning."  Then Mr.
+Puddicombe withdrew.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LORD CARSTAIRS.
+
+DURING the last six months Mr. Peacocke's most intimate friend at Bowick,
+excepting of course his wife, had been one of the pupils at the school.
+The lad was one of the pupils, but could not be said to be one of the
+boys.  He was the young Lord Carstairs, eldest son of Earl Bracy.  He had
+been sent to Bowick now six years ago, with the usual purpose of
+progressing from Bowick to Eton.  And from Bowick to Eton he had gone in
+due course.  But there, things had not gone well with the young lord.
+Some school disturbance had taken place when he had been there about a
+year and a half, in which he was, or was supposed to have been, a
+ringleader.  It was thought necessary, for the preservation of the
+discipline of the school, that a victim should be made;--and it was
+perhaps thought well, in order that the impartiality of the school might
+be made manifest, that the victim should be a lord.  Earl Bracy was
+therefore asked to withdraw his son; and young Lord Carstairs, at the age
+of seventeen, was left to seek his education where he could.  It had been,
+and still was, the Earl's purpose to send his son to Oxford, but there was
+now an interval of two years before that could be accomplished.  During
+one year he was sent abroad to travel with a tutor, and was then reported
+to have been all that a well-conducted lad ought to be.  He was declared
+to be quite worthy of all that Oxford would do for him.  It was even
+suggested that Eton had done badly for herself in throwing off from her
+such a young nobleman.  But though Lord Carstairs had done well with his
+French and German on the Continent, it would certainly be necessary that
+he should rub up his Greek and Latin before he went to Christ Church.
+Then a request was made to the Doctor to take him in at Bowick in some
+sort as a private pupil.  After some demurring the Doctor consented.  It
+was not his wont to run counter to earls who treated him with respect and
+deference.  Earl Bracy had in a special manner been his friend, and Lord
+Carstairs himself had been a great favourite at Bowick.  When that
+expulsion from Eton had come about, the Doctor had interested himself, and
+had declared that a very scant measure of justice had been shown to the
+young lord.  He was thus in a measure compelled to accede to the request
+made to him, and Lord Carstairs was received back at Bowick, not without
+hesitation, but with a full measure of affectionate welcome.  His bed-room
+was in the parsonage-house, and his dinner he took with the Doctor's
+family.  In other respects he lived among the boys.
+
+"Will it not be bad for Mary?" Mrs. Wortle had said anxiously to her
+husband when the matter was first discussed.
+
+"Why should it be bad for Mary?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know;--but young people together, you know?  Mightn't it be
+dangerous?"
+
+"He is a boy, and she is a mere child.  They are both children.  It will
+be a trouble, but I do not think it will be at all dangerous in that way."
+And so it was decided.  Mrs. Wortle did not at all agree as to their both
+being children.  She thought that her girl was far from being a child.
+But she had argued the matter quite as much as she ever argued anything
+with the Doctor.  So the matter was arranged, and young Lord Carstairs
+came back to Bowick.
+
+As far as the Doctor could see, nothing could be nicer than his young
+pupil's manners.  He was not at all above playing with the other boys.  He
+took very kindly to his old studies and his old haunts, and of an evening,
+after dinner, went away from the drawing-room to the study in pursuit of
+his Latin and his Greek, without any precocious attempt at making
+conversation with Miss Wortle.  No doubt there was a good deal of
+lawn-tennis of an afternoon, and the lawn-tennis was generally played in
+the rectory garden.  But then this had ever been the case, and the
+lawn-tennis was always played with two on a side; there were no
+_tete-a-tete_ games between his lordship and Mary, and whenever the game
+was going on, Mrs. Wortle was always there to see fair-play.  Among other
+amusements the young lord took to walking far afield with Mr. Peacocke.
+And then, no doubt, many things were said about that life in America.
+When a man has been much abroad, and has passed his time there under
+unusual circumstances, his doings will necessarily become subjects of
+conversation to his companions.  To have travelled in France, Germany, or
+in Italy, is not uncommon; nor is it uncommon to have lived a year or
+years in Florence or in Rome.  It is not uncommon now to have travelled
+all through the United States.  The Rocky Mountains or Peru are hardly
+uncommon, so much has the taste for travelling increased.  But for an
+Oxford Fellow of a college, and a clergyman of the Church of England, to
+have established himself as a professor in Missouri, is uncommon, and it
+could hardly be but that Lord Carstairs should ask questions respecting
+that far-away life.
+
+Mr. Peacocke had no objection to such questions.  He told his young friend
+much about the manners of the people of St. Louis,--told him how far the
+people had progressed in classical literature, in what they fell behind,
+and in what they excelled youths of their own age in England, and how far
+the college was a success.  Then he described his own life,--both before
+and after his marriage.  He had liked the people of St. Louis well
+enough,--but not quite well enough to wish to live among them.  No doubt
+their habits were very different from those of Englishmen.  He could,
+however, have been happy enough there,--only that circumstances arose.
+
+"Did Mrs. Peacocke like the place?" the young lord asked one day.
+
+"She is an American, you know."
+
+"Oh yes; I have heard.  But did she come from St. Louis?"
+
+"No; her father was a planter in Louisiana, not far from New Orleans,
+before the abolition of slavery."
+
+"Did she like St. Louis?"
+
+"Well enough, I think, when we were first married.  She had been married
+before, you know.  She was a widow."
+
+"Did she like coming to England among strangers?"
+
+"She was glad to leave St. Louis.  Things happened there which made her
+life unhappy.  It was on that account I came here, and gave up a position
+higher and more lucrative than I shall ever now get in England."
+
+"I should have thought you might have had a school of your own," said the
+lad.  "You know so much, and get on so well with boys.  I should have
+thought you might have been tutor at a college."
+
+"To have a school of my own would take money," said he, "which I have not
+got.  To be tutor at a college would take---- But never mind.  I am very
+well where I am, and have nothing to complain of."  He had been going to
+say that to be tutor of a college he would want high standing.  And then
+he would have been forced to explain that he had lost at his own college
+that standing which he had once possessed.
+
+"Yes," he said on another occasion, "she is unhappy; but do not ask her
+any questions about it."
+
+"Who,--I?  Oh dear, no!  I should not think of taking such a liberty."
+
+"It would be as a kindness, not as a liberty.  But still, do not speak to
+her about it.  There are sorrows which must be hidden, which it is better
+to endeavour to bury by never speaking of them, by not thinking of them,
+if that were possible."
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" the lad asked.
+
+"It is bad enough sometimes.  But never mind.  You remember that Roman
+wisdom,--'Dabit Deus his quoque finem.' And I think that all things are
+bearable if a man will only make up his mind to bear them.  Do not tell
+any one that I have complained."
+
+"Who,--I?  Oh, never!"
+
+"Not that I have said anything which all the world might not know; but
+that it is unmanly to complain.  Indeed I do not complain, only I wish
+that things were lighter to her."  Then he went off to other matters; but
+his heart was yearning to tell everything to this young lad.
+
+Before the end of the week had arrived, there came a letter to him which
+he had not at all expected, and a letter also to the Doctor,--both from
+Lord Bracy.  The letter to Mr. Peacocke was as follows:--
+
+
+"MY DEAR SIR,--I have been much gratified by what I have heard both from
+Dr. Wortle and my son as to his progress.  He will have to come home in
+July, when the Doctor's school is broken up, and, as you are probably
+aware, will go up to Oxford in October.  I think it would be very
+expedient that he should not altogether lose the holidays, and I am aware
+how much more he would do with adequate assistance than without it.  The
+meaning of all this is, that I and Lady Bracy will feel very much obliged
+if you and Mrs. Peacocke will come and spend your holidays with us at
+Carstairs.  I have written to Dr. Wortle on the subject, partly to tell
+him of my proposal, because he has been so kind to my son, and partly to
+ask him to fix the amount of remuneration, should you be so kind as to
+accede to my request.
+
+"His mother has heard on more than one occasion from her son how very
+good-natured you have been to him.--Yours faithfully,
+
+"BRACY."
+
+
+It was, of course, quite out of the question.  Mr. Peacocke, as soon as he
+had read the letter, felt that it was so.  Had things been smooth and easy
+with him, nothing would have delighted him more.  His liking for the lad
+was most sincere, and it would have been a real pleasure to him to have
+worked with him during the holidays.  But it was quite out of the
+question.  He must tell Lord Carstairs that it was so, and must at the
+moment give such explanation as might occur to him.  He almost felt that
+in giving that explanation he would be tempted to tell his whole story.
+
+But the Doctor met him before he had an opportunity of speaking to Lord
+Carstairs.  The Doctor met him, and at once produced the Earl's letter.
+"I have heard from Lord Bracy, and you, I suppose, have had a letter too,"
+said the Doctor.  His manner was easy and kind, as though no disagreeable
+communication was due to be made on the following day.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Peacocke.  "I have had a letter."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"His lordship has asked me to go to Carstairs for the holidays; but it is
+out of the question."
+
+"It would do Carstairs all the good in the world," said the Doctor; "and I
+do not see why you should not have a pleasant visit and earn twenty-five
+pounds at the same time."
+
+"It is quite out of the question."
+
+"I suppose you would not like to leave Mrs. Peacocke," said the Doctor.
+
+"Either to leave her or to take her!  To go myself under any circumstances
+would be altogether out of the question.  I shall come to you to-morrow,
+Doctor, as I said I would last Saturday.  What hour will suit you?"  Then
+the Doctor named an hour in the afternoon, and knew that the revelation
+was to be made to him.  He felt, too, that that revelation would lead to
+the final departure of Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke from Bowick, and he was
+unhappy in his heart.  Though he was anxious for his school, he was
+anxious also for his friend.  There was a gratification in the feeling
+that Lord Bracy thought so much of his assistant,--or would have been but
+for this wretched mystery!
+
+"No," said Mr. Peacocke to the lad.  "I regret to say that I cannot go.  I
+will tell you why, perhaps, another time, but not now.  I have written to
+your father by this post, because it is right that he should be told at
+once.  I have been obliged to say that it is impossible."
+
+"I am so sorry!  I should so much have liked it.  My father would have
+done everything to make you comfortable, and so would mamma."  In answer
+to all this Mr. Peacocke could only say that it was impossible.  This
+happened on Friday afternoon, Friday being a day on which the school was
+always very busy.  There was no time for the doing of anything special, as
+there would be on the following day, which was a half-holiday.  At night,
+when the work was altogether over, he showed the letter to his wife, and
+told her what he had decided.
+
+"Couldn't you have gone without me?" she asked.
+
+"How can I do that," he said, "when before this time to-morrow I shall
+have told everything to Dr. Wortle?  After that, he would not let me go.
+He would do no more than his duty in telling me that if I proposed to go
+he must make it all known to Lord Bracy.  But this is a trifle.  I am at
+the present moment altogether in the dark as to what I shall do with
+myself when to-morrow evening comes.  I cannot guess, because it is so
+hard to know what are the feelings in the breast of another man.  It may
+so well be that he should refuse me permission to go to my desk in the
+school again."
+
+"Will he be hard like that?"
+
+"I can hardly tell myself whether it would be hard.  I hardly know what I
+should feel it my duty to do in such a position myself.  I have deceived
+him."
+
+"No!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes; I have deceived him.  Coming to him as I did, I gave him to
+understand that there was nothing wrong;--nothing to which special
+objection could be made in my position."
+
+"Then we are deceiving all the world in calling ourselves man and wife."
+
+"Certainly we are; but to that we had made up our mind!  We are not
+injuring all the world.  No doubt it is a lie,--but there are
+circumstances in which a lie can hardly be a sin.  I would have been the
+last to say so before all this had come upon me, but I feel it to be so
+now.  It is a lie to say that you are my wife."
+
+"Is it?  Is it?"
+
+"Is it not?  And yet I would rather cut my tongue out than say otherwise.
+To give you my name is a lie,--but what should I think of myself were I to
+allow you to use any other?  What would you have thought if I had asked
+you to go away and leave me when that bad hour came upon us?"
+
+"I would have borne it."
+
+"I could not have borne it.  There are worse things than a lie.  I have
+found, since this came upon us, that it may be well to choose one sin in
+order that another may be shunned.  To cherish you, to comfort you, to
+make the storm less sharp to you,--that has already been my duty as well
+as my pleasure.  To do the same to me is your duty."
+
+"And my pleasure; and my pleasure,--my only pleasure."
+
+"We must cling to each other, let the world call us what names it may.
+But there may come a time in which one is called on to do a special act of
+justice to others.  It has come now to me.  From the world at large I am
+prepared, if possible, to keep my secret, even though I do it by
+lying;--but to this one man I am driven to tell it, because I may not
+return his friendship by doing him an evil."
+
+Morning school at this time of the year at Bowick began at half-past
+seven.  There was an hour of school before breakfast, at which the Doctor
+did not himself put in an appearance.  He was wont to tell the boys that
+he had done all that when he was young, and that now in his old age it
+suited him best to have his breakfast before he began the work of the day.
+Mr. Peacocke, of course, attended the morning school.  Indeed, as the
+matutinal performances were altogether classical, it was impossible that
+much should be done without him.  On this Saturday morning, however, he
+was not present; and a few minutes after the proper time, the mathematical
+master took his place.  "I saw him coming across out of his own door,"
+little Jack Talbot said to the younger of the two Clifford boys, "and
+there was a man coming up from the gate who met him."
+
+"What sort of a man?" asked Clifford.
+
+"He was a rummy-looking fellow, with a great beard, and a queer kind of
+coat.  I never saw any one like him before."
+
+"And where did they go?"
+
+"They stood talking for a minute or two just before the front door, and
+then Mr. Peacocke took him into the house.  I heard him tell Carstairs to
+go through and send word up to the Doctor that he wouldn't be in school
+this morning."
+
+It had all happened just as young Talbot had said.  A very "rummy-looking
+fellow" had at that early hour been driven over from Broughton to Bowick,
+and had caught Mr. Peacocke just as he was going into the school.  He was
+a man with a beard, loose, flowing on both sides, as though he were winged
+like a bird,--a beard that had been black, but was now streaked through
+and through with grey hairs.  The man had a coat with frogged buttons that
+must have been intended to have a military air when it was new, but which
+was now much the worse for wear.  The coat was so odd as to have caught
+young Talbot's attention at once.  And the man's hat was old and seedy.
+But there was a look about him as though he were by no means ashamed
+either of himself or of his present purpose.  "He came in a gig," said
+Talbot to his friend; "for I saw the horse standing at the gate, and the
+man sitting in the gig."
+
+"You remember me, no doubt," the stranger said, when he encountered Mr.
+Peacocke.
+
+"I do not remember you in the least," the schoolmaster answered.
+
+"Come, come; that won't do.  You know me well enough.  I'm Robert Lefroy."
+
+Then Mr. Peacocke, looking at him again, knew that the man was the brother
+of his wife's husband.  He had not seen him often, but he recognised him
+as Robert Lefroy, and having recognised him he took him into the house.
+
+
+
+Part III.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ROBERT LEFROY.
+
+FERDINAND LEFROY, the man who had in truth been the woman's husband, had,
+during that one interview which had taken place between him and the man
+who had married his wife, on his return to St. Louis, declared that his
+brother Robert was dead.  But so had Robert, when Peacocke encountered him
+down at Texas, declared that Ferdinand was dead.  Peacocke knew that no
+word of truth could be expected from the mouths of either of them.  But
+seeing is believing.  He had seen Ferdinand alive at St. Louis after his
+marriage, and by seeing him, had been driven away from his home back to
+his old country.  Now he also saw this other man, and was aware that his
+secret was no longer in his own keeping.
+
+"Yes, I know you now.  Why, when I saw you last, did you tell me that your
+brother was dead?  Why did you bring so great an injury on your
+sister-in-law?"
+
+"I never told you anything of the kind."
+
+"As God is above us you told me so."
+
+"I don't know anything about that, my friend.  Maybe I was cut.  I used to
+be drinking a good deal them days.  Maybe I didn't say anything of the
+kind,--only it suited you to go back and tell her so.  Anyways I
+disremember it altogether.  Anyways he wasn't dead.  And I ain't dead
+now."
+
+"I can see that."
+
+"And I ain't drunk now.  But I am not quite so well off as a fellow would
+wish to be.  Can you get me breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, I can get you breakfast," he said, after pausing for a while.  Then
+he rang the bell and told the girl to bring some breakfast for the
+gentleman as soon as possible into the room in which they were sitting.
+This was in a little library in which he was in the habit of studying and
+going through lessons with the boys.  He had brought the man here so that
+his wife might not come across him.  As soon as the order was given, he
+ran up-stairs to her room, to save her from coming down.
+
+"A man;--what man?" she asked.
+
+"Robert Lefroy.  I must go to him at once.  Bear yourself well and boldly,
+my darling.  It is he, certainly.  I know nothing yet of what he may have
+to say, but it will be well that you should avoid him if possible.  When I
+have heard anything I will tell you all."  Then he hurried down and found
+the man examining the book-shelves.
+
+"You have got yourself up pretty tidy again, Peacocke," said Lefroy.
+
+"Pretty well."
+
+"The old game, I suppose.  Teaching the young idea.  Is this what you call
+a college, now, in your country?"
+
+"It is a school."
+
+"And you're one of the masters."
+
+"I am the second master."
+
+"It ain't as good, I reckon, as the Missouri College."
+
+"It's not so large, certainly."
+
+"What's the screw?" he said.
+
+"The payment, you mean.  It can hardly serve us now to go into matters
+such as that.  What is it that has brought you here, Lefroy?"
+
+"Well, a big ship, an uncommonly bad sort of railway car, and the
+ricketiest little buggy that ever a man trusted his life to.  Them's
+what's brought me here."
+
+"I suppose you have something to say, or you would not have come," said
+Peacocke.
+
+"Yes, I've a good deal to say of one kind or another.  But here's the
+breakfast, and I'm well-nigh starved.  What, cold meat!  I'm darned if I
+can eat cold meat.  Haven't you got anything hot, my dear?"  Then it was
+explained to him that hot meat was not to be had, unless he would choose
+to wait, to have some lengthened cooking accomplished.  To this, however,
+he objected, and then the girl left the room.
+
+"I've a good many things to say of one kind or another," he continued.
+"It's difficult to say, Peacocke, how you and I stand with each other."
+
+"I do not know that we stand with each other at all, as you call it."
+
+"I mean as to relationship.  Are you my brother-in-law, or are you not?"
+This was a question which in very truth the schoolmaster found it hard to
+answer.  He did not answer it at all, but remained silent.  "Are you my
+brother-in-law, or are you not?  You call her Mrs. Peacocke, eh?"
+
+"Yes, I call her Mrs. Peacocke."
+
+"And she is here living with you?"
+
+"Yes, she is here."
+
+"Had she not better come down and see me?  She is my sister-in-law,
+anyway."
+
+"No," said Mr. Peacocke; "I think, on the whole, that she had better not
+come down and see you."
+
+"You don't mean to say she isn't my sister-in-law?  She's that, whatever
+else she is.  She's that, whatever name she goes by.  If Ferdinand had
+been ever so much dead, and that marriage at St. Louis had been ever so
+good, still she'd been my sister-in-law."
+
+"Not a doubt about it," said Mr. Peacocke.  "But still, under all the
+circumstances, she had better not see you."
+
+"Well, that's a queer beginning, anyway.  But perhaps you'll come round
+by-and-by.  She goes by Mrs. Peacocke?"
+
+"She is regarded as my wife," said the husband, feeling himself to become
+more and more indignant at every word, but knowing at the same time how
+necessary it was that he should keep his indignation hidden.
+
+"Whether true or false?" asked the brother-in-law.
+
+"I will answer no such question as that."
+
+"You ain't very well disposed to answer any question, as far as I can see.
+But I shall have to make you answer one or two before I've done with you.
+There's a Doctor here, isn't there, as this school belongs to?"
+
+"Yes, there is.  It belongs to Dr. Wortle."
+
+"It's him these boys are sent to?"
+
+"Yes, he is the master; I am only his assistant."
+
+"It's him they comes to for education, and morals, and religion?"
+
+"Quite so."
+
+"And he knows, no doubt, all about you and my sister-in-law;--how you came
+and married her when she was another man's wife, and took her away when
+you knew as that other man was alive and kicking?"  Mr. Peacocke, when
+these questions were put to him, remained silent, because literally he did
+not know how to answer them.  He was quite prepared to take his position
+as he found it.  He had told himself before this dreadful man had
+appeared, that the truth must be made known at Bowick, and that he and his
+wife must pack up and flit.  It was not that the man could bring upon him
+any greater evil than he had anticipated.  But the questions which were
+asked him were in themselves so bitter!  The man, no doubt, was his wife's
+brother-in-law.  He could not turn him out of the house as he would a
+stranger, had a stranger come there asking such questions without any
+claim of family.  Abominable as the man was to him, still he was there
+with a certain amount of right upon his side.
+
+"I think," said he, "that questions such as those you've asked can be of
+no service to you.  To me they are intended only to be injurious."
+
+"They're as a preface to what is to come," said Robert Lefroy, with an
+impudent leer upon his face.  "The questions, no doubt, are disagreeable
+enough.  She ain't your wife no more than she's mine.  You've no business
+with her; and that you knew when you took her away from St. Louis.  You
+may, or you mayn't, have been fooled by some one down in Texas when you
+went back and married her in all that hurry.  But you knew what you were
+doing well enough when you took her away.  You won't dare to tell me that
+you hadn't seen Ferdinand when you two mizzled off from the College?"
+Then he paused, waiting again for a reply.
+
+"As I told you before," he said, "no further conversation on the subject
+can be of avail.  It does not suit me to be cross-examined as to what I
+knew or what I did not know.  If you have anything for me to hear, you can
+say it.  If you have anything to tell to others, go and tell it to them."
+
+"That's just it," said Lefroy.
+
+"Then go and tell it."
+
+"You're in a terrible hurry, Mister Peacocke.  I don't want to drop in and
+spoil your little game.  You're making money of your little game.  I can
+help you as to carrying on your little game, better than you do at
+present.  I don't want to blow upon you.  But as you're making money out
+of it, I'd like to make a little too.  I am precious hard up,--I am."
+
+"You will make no money of me," said the other.
+
+"A little will go a long way with me; and remember, I have got tidings now
+which are worth paying for."
+
+"What tidings?"
+
+"If they're worth paying for, it's not likely that you are going to get
+them for nothing."
+
+"Look here, Colonel Lefroy; whatever you may have to say about me will
+certainly not be prevented by my paying you money.  Though you might be
+able to ruin me to-morrow I would not give you a dollar to save myself."
+
+"But her," said Lefroy, pointing as it were up-stairs, with his thumb over
+his shoulder.
+
+"Nor her," said Peacocke.
+
+"You don't care very much about her, then?"
+
+"How much I may care I shall not trouble myself to explain to you.  I
+certainly shall not endeavour to serve her after that fashion.  I begin to
+understand why you have come, and can only beg you to believe that you
+have come in vain."
+
+Lefroy turned to his food, which he had not yet finished, while his
+companion sat silent at the window, trying to arrange in his mind the
+circumstances of the moment as best he might.  He declared to himself that
+had the man come but one day later, his coming would have been matter of
+no moment.  The story, the entire story, would then have been told to the
+Doctor, and the brother-in-law, with all his malice, could have added
+nothing to the truth.  But now it seemed as though there would be a race
+which should tell the story first.  Now the Doctor would, no doubt, be led
+to feel that the narration was made because it could no longer be kept
+back.  Should this man be with the Doctor first, and should the story be
+told as he would tell it, then it would be impossible for Mr. Peacocke, in
+acknowledging the truth of it all, to bring his friend's mind back to the
+condition in which it would have been had this intruder not been in the
+way.  And yet he could not make a race of it with the man.  He could not
+rush across, and, all but out of breath with his energy, begin his
+narration while Lefroy was there knocking at the door.  There would be an
+absence of dignity in such a mode of proceeding which alone was sufficient
+to deter him.  He had fixed an hour already with the Doctor.  He had said
+that he would be there in the house at a certain time.  Let the man do
+what he would he would keep exactly to his purpose, unless the Doctor
+should seek an earlier interview.  He would, in no tittle, be turned from
+his purpose by the unfortunate coming of this wretched man.  "Well!" said
+Lefroy, as soon as he had eaten his last mouthful.
+
+"I have nothing to say to you," said Peacocke.
+
+"Nothing to say?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"Well, that's queer.  I should have thought there'd have been a many
+words.  I've got a lot to say to somebody, and mean to say it;--precious
+soon too.  Is there any hotel here, where I can put this horse up?  I
+suppose you haven't got stables of your own?  I wonder if the Doctor would
+give me accommodation?"
+
+"I haven't got a stable, and the Doctor certainly will not give you
+accommodation.  There is a public-house less than a quarter of a mile
+further on, which no doubt your driver knows very well.  You had better go
+there yourself, because after what has taken place, I am bound to tell you
+that you will not be admitted here."
+
+"Not admitted?"
+
+"No.  You must leave this house, and will not be admitted into it again as
+long as I live in it."
+
+"The Doctor will admit me."
+
+"Very likely.  I, at any rate, shall do nothing to dissuade him.  If you
+go down to the road you'll see the gate leading up to his house.  I think
+you'll find that he is down-stairs by this time."
+
+"You take it very cool, Peacocke."
+
+"I only tell you the truth.  With you I will have nothing more to do.  You
+have a story which you wish to tell to Dr. Wortle.  Go and tell it to
+him."
+
+"I can tell it to all the world," said Lefroy.
+
+"Go and tell it to all the world."
+
+"And I ain't to see my sister?"
+
+"No; you will not see your sister-in-law here.  Why should she wish to see
+one who has only injured her?"
+
+"I ain't injured her;--at any rate not as yet.  I ain't done nothing;--not
+as yet.  I've been as dark as the grave;--as yet.  Let her come down, and
+you go away for a moment, and let us see if we can't settle it."
+
+"There is nothing for you to settle.  Nothing that you can do, nothing
+that you can say, will influence either her or me.  If you have anything
+to tell, go and tell it."
+
+"Why should you smash up everything in that way, Peacocke?  You're
+comfortable here; why not remain so?  I don't want to hurt you.  I want to
+help you;--and I can.  Three hundred dollars wouldn't be much to you.  You
+were always a fellow as had a little money by you."
+
+"If this box were full of gold," said the schoolmaster, laying his hand
+upon a black desk which stood on the table, "I would not give you one cent
+to induce you to hold your tongue for ever.  I would not condescend even
+to ask it of you as a favour.  You think that you can disturb our
+happiness by telling what you know of us to Dr. Wortle.  Go and try."
+
+Mr. Peacocke's manner was so firm that the other man began to doubt
+whether in truth he had a secret to tell.  Could it be possible that Dr.
+Wortle knew it all, and that the neighbours knew it all, and that, in
+spite of what had happened, the position of the man and of the woman was
+accepted among them?  They certainly were not man and wife, and yet they
+were living together as such.  Could such a one as this Dr. Wortle know
+that it was so?  He, when he had spoken of the purposes for which the boys
+were sent there, asking whether they were not sent for education, for
+morals and religion, had understood much of the Doctor's position.  He had
+known the peculiar value of his secret.  He had been aware that a
+schoolmaster with a wife to whom he was not in truth married must be out
+of place in an English seminary such as this.  But yet he now began to
+doubt.  "I am to be turned out, then?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, indeed, Colonel Lefroy.  The sooner you go the better."
+
+"That's a pretty sort of welcome to your wife's brother-in-law, who has
+just come over all the way from Mexico to see her."
+
+"To get what he can out of her by his unwelcome presence," said Peacocke.
+"Here you can get nothing.  Go and do your worst.  If you remain much
+longer I shall send for the policeman to remove you."
+
+"You will?"
+
+"Yes, I shall.  My time is not my own, and I cannot go over to my work
+leaving you in my house.  You have nothing to get by my friendship.  Go
+and see what you can do as my enemy."
+
+"I will," said the Colonel, getting up from his chair; "I will.  If I'm to
+be treated in this way it shall not be for nothing.  I have offered you
+the right hand of an affectionate brother-in-law."
+
+"Bosh," said Mr. Peacocke.
+
+"And you tell me that I am an enemy.  Very well; I will be an enemy.  I
+could have put you altogether on your legs, but I'll leave you without an
+inch of ground to stand upon.  You see if I don't."  Then he put his hat
+on his head, and stalked out of the house, down the road towards the gate.
+
+Mr. Peacocke, when he was left alone, remained in the room collecting his
+thoughts, and then went up-stairs to his wife.
+
+"Has he gone?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, he has gone."
+
+"And what has he said?"
+
+"He has asked for money,--to hold his tongue."
+
+"Have you given him any?"
+
+"Not a cent.  I have given him nothing but hard words.  I have bade him go
+and do his worst.  To be at the mercy of such a man as that would be worse
+for you and for me than anything that fortune has sent us even yet."
+
+"Did he want to see me?"
+
+"Yes; but I refused.  Was it not better?"
+
+"Yes; certainly, if you think so.  What could I have said to him?
+Certainly it was better.  His presence would have half killed me.  But
+what will he do, Henry?"
+
+"He will tell it all to everybody that he sees."
+
+"Oh, my darling!"
+
+"What matter though he tells it at the town-cross?  It would have been
+told to-day by myself."
+
+"But only to one."
+
+"It would have been the same.  For any purpose of concealment it would
+have been the same.  I have got to hate the concealment.  What have we
+done but clung together as a man and woman should who have loved each
+other, and have had a right to love?  What have we done of which we should
+be ashamed?  Let it be told.  Let it all be known.  Have you not been good
+and pure?  Have not I been true to you?  Bear up your courage, and let the
+man do his worst.  Not to save even you would I cringe before such a man
+as that.  And were I to do so, I should save you from nothing."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE STORY IS TOLD.
+
+DURING the whole of that morning the Doctor did not come into the school.
+The school hours lasted from half-past nine to twelve, during a portion of
+which time it was his practice to be there.  But sometimes, on a Saturday,
+he would be absent, when it was understood generally that he was preparing
+his sermon for the Sunday.  Such, no doubt, might be the case now; but
+there was a feeling among the boys that he was kept away by some other
+reason.  It was known that during the hour of morning school Mr. Peacocke
+had been occupied with that uncouth stranger, and some of the boys might
+have observed that the uncouth stranger had not taken himself altogether
+away from the premises.  There was at any rate a general feeling that the
+uncouth stranger had something to do with the Doctor's absence.
+
+Mr. Peacocke did his best to go on with the work as though nothing had
+occurred to disturb the usual tenor of his way, and as far as the boys
+were aware he succeeded.  He was just as clear about his Greek verbs, just
+as incisive about that passage of Caesar, as he would have been had Colonel
+Lefroy remained on the other side of the water.  But during the whole time
+he was exercising his mind in that painful process of thinking of two
+things at once.  He was determined that Caesar should be uppermost; but it
+may be doubted whether he succeeded.  At that very moment Colonel Lefroy
+might be telling the Doctor that his Ella was in truth the wife of another
+man.  At that moment the Doctor might be deciding in his anger that the
+sinful and deceitful man should no longer be "officer of his."  The
+hour was too important to him to leave his mind at his own disposal.
+Nevertheless he did his best.  "Clifford, junior," he said, "I shall never
+make you understand what Caesar says here or elsewhere if you do not give
+your entire mind to Caesar."
+
+"I do give my entire mind to Caesar," said Clifford, junior.
+
+"Very well; now go on and try again.  But remember that Caesar wants all
+your mind."  As he said this he was revolving in his own mind how he would
+face the Doctor when the Doctor should look at him in his wrath.  If the
+Doctor were in any degree harsh with him, he would hold his own against
+the Doctor as far as the personal contest might go.  At twelve the boys
+went out for an hour before their dinner, and Lord Carstairs asked him to
+play a game of rackets.
+
+"Not to-day, my Lord," he said.
+
+"Is anything wrong with you?"
+
+"Yes, something is very wrong."  They had strolled out of the building,
+and were walking up and down the gravel terrace in front when this was
+said.
+
+"I knew something was wrong, because you called me my Lord."
+
+"Yes, something is so wrong as to alter for me all the ordinary ways of my
+life.  But I wasn't thinking of it.  It came by accident,--just because I
+am so troubled."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"There has been a man here,--a man whom I knew in America."
+
+"An enemy?"
+
+"Yes,--an enemy.  One who is anxious to do me all the injury he can."
+
+"Are you in his power, Mr. Peacocke?"
+
+"No, thank God; not that.  I am in no man's power.  He cannot do me any
+material harm.  Anything which may happen would have happened whether he
+had come or not.  But I am unhappy."
+
+"I wish I knew."
+
+"So do I,--with all my heart.  I wish you knew; I wish you knew.  I would
+that all the world knew.  But we shall live through it, no doubt.  And if
+we do not, what matter.  'Nil conscire sibi,--nulla pallescere culpa.'
+That is all that is necessary to a man.  I have done nothing of which I
+repent;--nothing that I would not do again; nothing of which I am ashamed
+to speak as far as the judgment of other men is concerned.  Go, now.  They
+are making up sides for cricket.  Perhaps I can tell you more before the
+evening is over."
+
+Both Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke were accustomed to dine with the boys at one,
+when Carstairs, being a private pupil, only had his lunch.  But on this
+occasion she did not come into the dining-room.  "I don't think I can
+to-day," she said, when he bade her to take courage, and not be altered
+more than she could help, in her outward carriage, by the misery of her
+present circumstances.  "I could not eat if I were there, and then they
+would look at me."
+
+"If it be so, do not attempt it.  There is no necessity.  What I mean is,
+that the less one shrinks the less will be the suffering.  It is the man
+who shivers on the brink that is cold, and not he who plunges into the
+water.  If it were over,--if the first brunt of it were over, I could find
+means to comfort you."
+
+He went through the dinner, as he had done the Caesar, eating the roast
+mutton and the baked potatoes, and the great plateful of currant-pie that
+was brought to him.  He was fed and nourished, no doubt, but it may be
+doubtful whether he knew much of the flavour of what he ate.  But before
+the dinner was quite ended, before he had said the grace which it was
+always his duty to pronounce, there came a message to him from the
+rectory.  "The Doctor would be glad to see him as soon as dinner was
+done."  He waited very calmly till the proper moment should come for the
+grace, and then, very calmly, he took his way over to the house.  He was
+certain now that Lefroy had been with the Doctor, because he was sent for
+considerably before the time fixed for the interview.
+
+It was his chief resolve to hold his own before the Doctor.  The Doctor,
+who could read a character well, had so read that of Mr. Peacocke's as to
+have been aware from the first that no censure, no fault-finding, would be
+possible if the connection were to be maintained.  Other ushers, other
+curates, he had occasionally scolded.  He had been very careful never even
+to seem to scold Mr. Peacocke.  Mr. Peacocke had been aware of it
+too,--aware that he could not endure it, and aware also that the Doctor
+avoided any attempt at it.  He had known that, as a consequence of this,
+he was bound to be more than ordinarily prompt in the performance of all
+his duties.  The man who will not endure censure has to take care that he
+does not deserve it.  Such had been this man's struggle, and it had been
+altogether successful.  Each of the two understood the other, and each
+respected the other.  Now their position must be changed.  It was hardly
+possible, Mr. Peacocke thought, as he entered the house, that he should
+not be rebuked with grave severity, and quite out of the question that he
+should bear any rebuke at all.
+
+The library at the rectory was a spacious and handsome room, in the centre
+of which stood a large writing-table, at which the Doctor was accustomed
+to sit when he was at work,--facing the door, with a bow-window at his
+right hand.  But he rarely remained there when any one was summoned into
+the room, unless some one were summoned with whom he meant to deal in a
+spirit of severity.  Mr. Peacocke would be there perhaps three or four
+times a-week, and the Doctor would always get up from his chair and stand,
+or seat himself elsewhere in the room, and would probably move about with
+vivacity, being a fidgety man of quick motions, who sometimes seemed as
+though he could not hold his own body still for a moment.  But now when
+Mr. Peacocke entered the room he did not leave his place at the table.
+"Would you take a chair?" he said; "there is something that we must talk
+about."
+
+"Colonel Lefroy has been with you, I take it."
+
+"A man calling himself by that name has been here.  Will you not take a
+chair?"
+
+"I do not know that it will be necessary.  What he has told you,--what I
+suppose he has told you,--is true."
+
+"You had better at any rate take a chair.  I do not believe that what he
+has told me is true."
+
+"But it is."
+
+"I do not believe that what he has told me is true.  Some of it cannot, I
+think, be true.  Much of it is not so,--unless I am more deceived in you
+than I ever was in any man.  At any rate sit down."  Then the schoolmaster
+did sit down.  "He has made you out to be a perjured, wilful, cruel
+bigamist."
+
+"I have not been such," said Peacocke, rising from his chair.
+
+"One who has been willing to sacrifice a woman to his passion."
+
+"No; no."
+
+"Who deceived her by false witnesses."
+
+"Never."
+
+"And who has now refused to allow her to see her own husband's brother,
+lest she should learn the truth."
+
+"She is there,--at any rate for you to see."
+
+"Therefore the man is a liar.  A long story has to be told, as to which at
+present I can only guess what may be the nature.  I presume the story will
+be the same as that you would have told had the man never come here."
+
+"Exactly the same, Dr. Wortle."
+
+"Therefore you will own that I am right in asking you to sit down.  The
+story may be very long,--that is, if you mean to tell it."
+
+"I do,--and did.  I was wrong from the first in supposing that the nature
+of my marriage need be of no concern to others, but to herself and to me."
+
+"Yes,--Mr. Peacocke; yes.  We are, all of us, joined together too closely
+to admit of isolation such as that."  There was something in this which
+grated against the schoolmaster's pride, though nothing had been said as
+to which he did not know that much harder things must meet his ears before
+the matter could be brought to an end between him and the Doctor.  The
+"Mister" had been prefixed to his name, which had been omitted for the
+last three or four months in the friendly intercourse which had taken
+place between them; and then, though it had been done in the form of
+agreeing with what he himself had said, the Doctor had made his first
+complaint by declaring that no man had a right to regard his own moral
+life as isolated from the lives of others around him.  It was as much as
+to declare at once that he had been wrong in bringing this woman to
+Bowick, and calling her Mrs. Peacocke.  He had said as much himself, but
+that did not make the censure lighter when it came to him from the mouth
+of the Doctor.  "But come," said the Doctor, getting up from his seat at
+the table, and throwing himself into an easy-chair, so as to mitigate the
+austerity of the position; "let us hear the true story.  So big a liar as
+that American gentleman probably never put his foot in this room before."
+
+Then Mr. Peacocke told the story, beginning with all those incidents of
+the woman's life which had seemed to be so cruel both to him and to others
+at St. Louis before he had been in any degree intimate with her.  Then
+came the departure of the two men, and the necessity for pecuniary
+assistance, which Mr. Peacocke now passed over lightly, saying nothing
+specially of the assistance which he himself had rendered.  "And she was
+left quite alone?" asked the Doctor.
+
+"Quite alone."
+
+"And for how long?"
+
+"Eighteen months had passed before we heard any tidings.  Then there came
+news that Colonel Lefroy was dead."
+
+"The husband?"
+
+"We did not know which.  They were both Colonels."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Did he tell you that I went down into Mexico?"
+
+"Never mind what he told me.  All that he told me were lies.  What you
+tell me I shall believe.  But tell me everything."
+
+There was a tone of complete authority in the Doctor's voice, but mixed
+with this there was a kindliness which made the schoolmaster determined
+that he would tell everything as far as he knew how.  "When I heard that
+one of them was dead, I went away down to the borders of Texas, in order
+that I might learn the truth."
+
+"Did she know that you were going?"
+
+"Yes;--I told her the day I started."
+
+"And you told her why?"
+
+"That I might find out whether her husband were still alive."
+
+"But----"  The Doctor hesitated as he asked the next question.  He knew,
+however, that it had to be asked, and went on with it.  "Did she know that
+you loved her?"  To this the other made no immediate answer.  The Doctor
+was a man who, in such a matter, was intelligent enough, and he therefore
+put his question in another shape.  "Had you told her that you loved her?"
+
+"Never,--while I thought that other man was living."
+
+"She must have guessed it," said the Doctor.
+
+"She might guess what she pleased.  I told her that I was going, and I
+went."
+
+"And how was it, then?"
+
+"I went, and after a time I came across the very man who is here now, this
+Robert Lefroy.  I met him and questioned him, and he told me that his
+brother had been killed while fighting.  It was a lie."
+
+"Altogether a lie?" asked the Doctor.
+
+"How altogether?"
+
+"He might have been wounded and given over for dead.  The brother might
+have thought him to be dead."
+
+"I do not think so.  I believe it to have been a plot in order that the
+man might get rid of his wife.  But I believed it.  Then I went back to
+St. Louis,--and we were married."
+
+"You thought there was no obstacle but what you might become man and wife
+legally?"
+
+"I thought she was a widow."
+
+"There was no further delay?"
+
+"Very little.  Why should there have been delay?"
+
+"I only ask."
+
+"She had suffered enough, and I had waited long enough."
+
+"She owed you a great deal," said the Doctor.
+
+"It was not a case of owing," said Mr. Peacocke.  "At least I think not.
+I think she had learnt to love me as I had learnt to love her."
+
+"And how did it go with you then?"
+
+"Very well,--for some months.  There was nothing to mar our
+happiness,--till one day he came and made his way into our presence."
+
+"The husband?"
+
+"Yes; the husband, Ferdinand Lefroy, the elder brother;--he of whom I had
+been told that he was dead; he was there standing before us, talking to
+us,--half drunk, but still well knowing what he was doing."
+
+"Why had he come?"
+
+"In want of money, I suppose,--as this other one has come here."
+
+"Did he ask for money?"
+
+"I do not think he did then, though he spoke of his poor condition.  But
+on the next day he went away.  We heard that he had taken the steamer down
+the river for New Orleans.  We have never heard more of him from that day
+to this."
+
+"Can you imagine what caused conduct such as that?"
+
+"I think money was given to him that night to go; but if so, I do not know
+by whom.  I gave him none.  During the next day or two I found that many
+in St. Louis knew that he had been there."
+
+"They knew then that you----"
+
+"They knew that my wife was not my wife.  That is what you mean to ask?"
+The Doctor nodded his head.  "Yes, they knew that."
+
+"And what then?"
+
+"Word was brought to me that she and I must part if I chose to keep my
+place at the College."
+
+"That you must disown her?"
+
+"The President told me that it would be better that she should go
+elsewhere.  How could I send her from me?"
+
+"No, indeed;--but as to the facts?"
+
+"You know them all pretty well now.  I could not send her from me.  Nor
+could I go and leave her.  Had we been separated then, because of the law
+or because of religion, the burden, the misery, the desolation, would all
+have been upon her."
+
+"I would have clung to her, let the law say what it might," said the
+Doctor, rising from his chair.
+
+"You would?"
+
+"I would;--and I think that I could have reconciled it to my God.  But I
+might have been wrong," he added; "I might have been wrong.  I only say
+what I should have done."
+
+"It was what I did."
+
+"Exactly; exactly.  We are both sinners.  Both might have been wrong.
+Then you brought her over here, and I suppose I know the rest?"
+
+"You know everything now," said Mr. Peacocke.
+
+"And believe every word I have heard.  Let me say that, if that may be any
+consolation to you.  Of my friendship you may remain assured.  Whether you
+can remain here is another question."
+
+"We are prepared to go."
+
+"You cannot expect that I should have thought it all out during the
+hearing of the story.  There is much to be considered;--very much.  I can
+only say this, as between man and man, that no man ever sympathized with
+another more warmly than I do with you.  You had better let me have till
+Monday to think about it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+MRS. WORTLE AND MR. PUDDICOMBE.
+
+IN this way nothing was said at the first telling of the story to decide
+the fate of the schoolmaster and of the lady whom we shall still call his
+wife.  There certainly had been no horror displayed by the Doctor.
+"Whether you can remain here is another question."  The Doctor, during
+the whole interview, had said nothing harder than that.  Mr. Peacocke,
+as he left the rectory, did feel that the Doctor had been very good to
+him. There had not only been no horror, but an expression of the kindest
+sympathy.  And as to the going, that was left in doubt.  He himself felt
+that he ought to go;--but it would have been so very sad to have to go
+without a friend left with whom he could consult as to his future
+condition!
+
+"He has been very kind, then?" said Mrs. Peacocke to her husband when he
+related to her the particulars of the interview.
+
+"Very kind."
+
+"And he did not reproach you."
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"Nor me?"
+
+"He declared that had it been he who was in question he would have clung
+to you for ever and ever."
+
+"Did he?  Then will he leave us here?"
+
+"That does not follow.  I should think not.  He will know that others must
+know it.  Your brother-in-law will not tell him only.  Lefroy, when he
+finds that he can get no money here, from sheer revenge will tell the
+story everywhere.  When he left the rectory, he was probably as angry with
+the Doctor as he is with me.  He will do all the harm that he can to all
+of us."
+
+"We must go, then?"
+
+"I should think so.  Your position here would be insupportable even if it
+could be permitted.  You may be sure of this;--everybody will know it."
+
+"What do I care for everybody?" she said.  "It is not that I am ashamed of
+myself."
+
+"No, dearest; nor am I,--ashamed of myself or of you.  But there will be
+bitter words, and bitter words will produce bitter looks and scant
+respect.  How would it be with you if the boys looked at you as though
+they thought ill of you?"
+
+"They would not;--oh, they would not!"
+
+"Or the servants,--if they reviled you?"
+
+"Could it come to that?"
+
+"It must not come to that.  But it is as the Doctor said himself just
+now;--a man cannot isolate the morals, the manners, the ways of his life
+from the morals of others.  Men, if they live together, must live together
+by certain laws."
+
+"Then there can be no hope for us."
+
+"None that I can see, as far as Bowick is concerned.  We are too closely
+joined in our work with other people.  There is not a boy here with whose
+father and mother and sisters we are not more or less connected.  When I
+was preaching in the church, there was not one in the parish with whom I
+was not connected.  Would it do, do you think, for a priest to preach
+against drunkenness, whilst he himself was a noted drunkard?"
+
+"Are we like that?"
+
+"It is not what the drunken priest might think of himself, but what others
+might think of him.  It would not be with us the position which we know
+that we hold together, but that which others would think it to be.  If I
+were in Dr. Wortle's case, and another were to me as I am to him, I should
+bid him go."
+
+"You would turn him away from you; him and his--wife?"
+
+"I should.  My first duty would be to my parish and to my school.  If I
+could befriend him otherwise I would do so;--and that is what I expect
+from Dr. Wortle.  We shall have to go, and I shall be forced to approve of
+our dismissal."
+
+In this way Mr. Peacocke came definitely and clearly to a conclusion in
+his own mind.  But it was very different with Dr. Wortle.  The story so
+disturbed him, that during the whole of that afternoon he did not attempt
+to turn his mind to any other subject.  He even went so far as to send
+over to Mr. Puddicombe and asked for some assistance for the afternoon
+service on the following day.  He was too unwell, he said, to preach
+himself, and the one curate would have the two entire services unless Mr.
+Puddicombe could help him.  Could Mr. Puddicombe come himself and see him
+on the Sunday afternoon?  This note he sent away by a messenger, who came
+back with a reply, saying that Mr. Puddicombe would himself preach in the
+afternoon, and would afterwards call in at the rectory.
+
+For an hour or two before his dinner, the Doctor went out on horseback,
+and roamed about among the lanes, endeavouring to make up his mind.  He
+was hitherto altogether at a loss as to what he should do in this present
+uncomfortable emergency.  He could not bring his conscience and his
+inclination to come square together.  And even when he counselled himself
+to yield to his conscience, his very conscience,--a second conscience, as
+it were,--revolted against the first.  His first conscience told him that
+he owed a primary duty to his parish, a second duty to his school, and a
+third to his wife and daughter.  In the performance of all these duties he
+would be bound to rid himself of Mr. Peacocke.  But then there came that
+other conscience, telling him that the man had been more "sinned against
+than sinning,"--that common humanity required him to stand by a man who
+had suffered so much, and had suffered so unworthily.  Then this second
+conscience went on to remind him that the man was pre-eminently fit for
+the duties which he had undertaken,--that the man was a God-fearing,
+moral, and especially intellectual assistant in his school,--that were he
+to lose him he could not hope to find any one that would be his equal, or
+at all approaching to him in capacity.  This second conscience went
+further, and assured him that the man's excellence as a schoolmaster was
+even increased by the peculiarity of his position.  Do we not all know
+that if a man be under a cloud the very cloud will make him more attentive
+to his duties than another?  If a man, for the wages which he receives,
+can give to his employer high character as well as work, he will think
+that he may lighten his work because of his character.  And as to this
+man, who was the very phoenix of school assistants, there would really be
+nothing amiss with his character if only this piteous incident as to his
+wife were unknown.  In this way his second conscience almost got the
+better of the first.
+
+But then it would be known.  It would be impossible that it should not be
+known.  He had already made up his mind to tell Mr. Puddicombe, absolutely
+not daring to decide in such an emergency without consulting some friend.
+Mr. Puddicombe would hold his peace if he were to promise to do so.
+Certainly he might be trusted to do that.  But others would know it; the
+Bishop would know it; Mrs. Stantiloup would know it.  That man, of course,
+would take care that all Broughton, with its close full of cathedral
+clergymen, would know it.  When Mrs. Stantiloup should know it there would
+not be a boy's parent through all the school who would not know it.  If he
+kept the man he must keep him resolving that all the world should know
+that he kept him, that all the world should know of what nature was the
+married life of the assistant in whom he trusted.  And he must be prepared
+to face all the world, confiding in the uprightness and the humanity of
+his purpose.
+
+In such case he must say something of this kind to all the world; "I know
+that they are not married.  I know that their condition of life is opposed
+to the law of God and man.  I know that she bears a name that is not, in
+truth, her own; but I think that the circumstances in this case are so
+strange, so peculiar, that they excuse a disregard even of the law of God
+and man."  Had he courage enough for this?  And if the courage were there,
+was he high enough and powerful enough to carry out such a purpose?  Could
+he beat down the Mrs. Stantiloups?  And, indeed, could he beat down the
+Bishop and the Bishop's phalanx;--for he knew that the Bishop and the
+Bishop's phalanx would be against him?  They could not touch him in his
+living, because Mr. Peacocke would not be concerned in the services of the
+church; but would not his school melt away to nothing in his hands, if he
+were to attempt to carry it on after this fashion?  And then would he not
+have destroyed himself without advantage to the man whom he was anxious to
+assist?
+
+To only one point did he make up his mind certainly during that ride.
+Before he slept that night he would tell the whole story to his wife.  He
+had at first thought that he would conceal it from her.  It was his rule
+of life to act so entirely on his own will, that he rarely consulted her
+on matters of any importance.  As it was, he could not endure the
+responsibility of acting by himself.  People would say of him that he had
+subjected his wife to contamination, and had done so without giving her
+any choice in the matter.  So he resolved that he would tell his wife.
+
+"Not married," said Mrs. Wortle, when she heard the story.
+
+"Married; yes.  They were married.  It was not their fault that the
+marriage was nothing.  What was he to do when he heard that they had been
+deceived in this way?"
+
+"Not married properly!  Poor woman!"
+
+"Yes, indeed.  What should I have done if such had happened to me when we
+had been six months married?"
+
+"It couldn't have been."
+
+"Why not to you as well as to another?"
+
+"I was only a young girl."
+
+"But if you had been a widow?"
+
+"Don't, my dear; don't!  It wouldn't have been possible."
+
+"But you pity her?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"And you see that a great misfortune has fallen upon her, which she could
+not help?"
+
+"Not till she knew it," said the wife who had been married quite properly.
+
+"And what then?  What should she have done then?"
+
+"Gone," said the wife, who had no doubt as to the comfort, the beauty, the
+perfect security of her own position.
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"Gone away at once."
+
+"Whither should she go?  Who would have taken her by the hand?  Who would
+have supported her?  Would you have had her lay herself down in the first
+gutter and die?"
+
+"Better that than what she did do," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"Then, by all the faith I have in Christ, I think you are hard upon her.
+Do you think what it is to have to go out and live alone;--to have to look
+for your bread in desolation?"
+
+"I have never been tried, my dear," said she, clinging close to him.  "I
+have never had anything but what was good."
+
+"Ought we not to be kind to one to whom Fortune has been so unkind?"
+
+"If we can do so without sin."
+
+"Sin!  I despise the fear of sin which makes us think that its contact
+will soil us.  Her sin, if it be sin, is so near akin to virtue, that I
+doubt whether we should not learn of her rather than avoid her."
+
+"A woman should not live with a man unless she be his wife."  Mrs.
+Wortle said this with more of obstinacy than he had expected.
+
+"She was his wife, as far as she knew."
+
+"But when she knew that it was not so any longer,--then she should have
+left him."
+
+"And have starved?"
+
+"I suppose she might have taken bread from him."
+
+"You think, then, that she should go away from here?"
+
+"Do not you think so?  What will Mrs. Stantiloup say?"
+
+"And I am to turn them out into the cold because of a virago such as she
+is?  You would have no more charity than that?"
+
+"Oh, Jeffrey! what would the Bishop say?"
+
+"Cannot you get beyond Mrs. Stantiloup and beyond the Bishop, and think
+what Justice demands?"
+
+"The boys would all be taken away.  If you had a son, would you send him
+where there was a schoolmaster living,--living----.  Oh, you wouldn't."
+
+It is very clear to the Doctor that his wife's mind was made up on the
+subject; and yet there was no softer-hearted woman than Mrs. Wortle
+anywhere in the diocese, or one less likely to be severe upon a neighbour.
+Not only was she a kindly, gentle woman, but she was one who always had
+been willing to take her husband's opinion on all questions of right and
+wrong.  She, however, was decided that they must go.
+
+On the next morning, after service, which the schoolmaster did not attend,
+the Doctor saw Mr. Peacocke, and declared his intention of telling the
+story to Mr. Puddicombe.  "If you bid me hold my tongue," he said, "I will
+do so.  But it will be better that I should consult another clergyman.  He
+is a man who can keep a secret."  Then Mr. Peacocke gave him full authority
+to tell everything to Mr. Puddicombe.  He declared that the Doctor might
+tell the story to whom he would.  Everybody might know it now.  He had, he
+said, quite made up his mind about that.  What was the good of affecting
+secrecy when this man Lefroy was in the country?
+
+In the afternoon, after service, Mr. Puddicombe came up to the house, and
+heard it all.  He was a dry, thin, apparently unsympathetic man, but just
+withal, and by no means given to harshness.  He could pardon whenever he
+could bring himself to believe that pardon would have good results; but he
+would not be driven by impulses and softness of heart to save the faulty
+one from the effect of his fault, merely because that effect would be
+painful.  He was a man of no great mental calibre,--not sharp, and quick,
+and capable of repartee as was the Doctor, but rational in all things, and
+always guided by his conscience.  "He has behaved very badly to you," he
+said, when he heard the story.
+
+"I do not think so; I have no such feeling myself."
+
+"He behaved very badly in bringing her here without telling you all the
+facts.  Considering the position that she was to occupy, he must have
+known that he was deceiving you."
+
+"I can forgive all that," said the Doctor, vehemently.  "As far as I
+myself am concerned, I forgive everything."
+
+"You are not entitled to do so."
+
+"How--not entitled?"
+
+"You must pardon me if I seem to take a liberty in expressing myself too
+boldly in this matter.  Of course I should not do so unless you asked me."
+
+"I want you to speak freely,--all that you think."
+
+"In considering his conduct, we have to consider it all.  First of all
+there came a great and terrible misfortune which cannot but excite our
+pity.  According to his own story, he seems, up to that time, to have been
+affectionate and generous."
+
+"I believe every word of it," said the Doctor.
+
+"Allowing for a man's natural bias on his own side, so do I.  He had
+allowed himself to become attached to another man's wife; but we need not,
+perhaps, insist upon that."  The Doctor moved himself uneasily in his
+chair, but said nothing.  "We will grant that he put himself right by his
+marriage, though in that, no doubt, there should have been more of
+caution.  Then came his great misfortune.  He knew that his marriage had
+been no marriage.  He saw the man and had no doubt."
+
+"Quite so; quite so," said the Doctor, impatiently.
+
+"He should, of course, have separated himself from her.  There can be no
+doubt about it.  There is no room for any quibble."
+
+"Quibble!" said the Doctor.
+
+"I mean that no reference in our own minds to the pity of the thing, to
+the softness of the moment,--should make us doubt about it.  Feelings such
+as these should induce us to pardon sinners, even to receive them back
+into our friendship and respect,--when they have seen the error of their
+ways and have repented."
+
+"You are very hard."
+
+"I hope not.  At any rate I can only say as I think.  But, in truth, in
+the present emergency you have nothing to do with all that.  If he asked
+you for counsel you might give it to him, but that is not his present
+position.  He has told you his story, not in a spirit of repentance, but
+because such telling had become necessary."
+
+"He would have told it all the same though this man had never come."
+
+"Let us grant that it is so, there still remains his relation to you.  He
+came here under false pretences, and has done you a serious injury."
+
+"I think not," said the Doctor.
+
+"Would you have taken him into your establishment had you known it all
+before?  Certainly not.  Therefore I say that he has deceived you.  I do
+not advise you to speak to him with severity; but he should, I think, be
+made to know that you appreciate what he has done."
+
+"And you would turn him off;--send him away at once, out about his
+business?"
+
+"Certainly I would send him away."
+
+"You think him such a reprobate that he should not be allowed to earn his
+bread anywhere?"
+
+"I have not said so.  I know nothing of his means of earning his bread.
+Men living in sin earn their bread constantly.  But he certainly should
+not be allowed to earn his here."
+
+"Not though that man who was her husband should now be dead, and he should
+again marry,--legally marry,--this woman to whom he has been so true and
+loyal?"
+
+"As regards you and your school," said Mr. Puddicombe, "I do not think it
+would alter his position."
+
+With this the conference ended, and Mr. Puddicombe took his leave.  As he
+left the house the Doctor declared to himself that the man was a
+strait-laced, fanatical, hard-hearted bigot.  But though he said so to
+himself, he hardly thought so; and was aware that the man's words had had
+effect upon him.
+
+
+
+Part IV.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MR. PEACOCKE GOES.
+
+THE Doctor had been all but savage with his wife, and, for the moment, had
+hated Mr. Puddicombe, but still what they said had affected him.  They
+were both of them quite clear that Mr. Peacocke should be made to go at
+once.  And he, though he hated Mr. Puddicombe for his cold logic, could
+not but acknowledge that all the man had said was true.  According to the
+strict law of right and wrong the two unfortunates should have parted when
+they found that they were not in truth married.  And, again, according to
+the strict law of right and wrong, Mr. Peacocke should not have brought
+the woman there, into his school, as his wife.  There had been deceit.
+But then would not he, Dr. Wortle himself, have been guilty of similar
+deceit had it fallen upon him to have to defend a woman who had been true
+and affectionate to him?  Mr. Puddicombe would have left the woman to
+break her heart and have gone away and done his duty like a Christian,
+feeling no tugging at his heart-strings.  It was so that our Doctor spoke
+to himself of his counsellor, sitting there alone in his library.
+
+During his conference with Lefroy something had been said which had
+impressed him suddenly with an idea.  A word had fallen from the Colonel,
+an unintended word, by which the Doctor was made to believe that the other
+Colonel was dead, at any rate now.  He had cunningly tried to lead up to
+the subject, but Robert Lefroy had been on his guard as soon as he had
+perceived the Doctor's object, and had drawn back, denying the truth of
+the word he had before spoken.  The Doctor at last asked him the question
+direct.  Lefroy then declared that his brother had been alive and well
+when he left Texas, but he did this in such a manner as to strengthen in
+the Doctor's mind the impression that he was dead.  If it were so, then
+might not all these crooked things be made straight?
+
+He had thought it better to raise no false hopes.  He had said nothing of
+this to Peacocke on discussing the story.  He had not even hinted it to
+his wife, from whom it might probably make its way to Mrs. Peacocke.  He
+had suggested it to Mr. Puddicombe,--asking whether there might not be a
+way out of all their difficulties.  Mr. Puddicombe had declared that there
+could be no such way as far as the school was concerned.  Let them marry,
+and repent their sins, and go away from the spot they had contaminated,
+and earn their bread in some place in which there need be no longer
+additional sin in concealing the story of their past life.  That seemed to
+have been Mr. Puddicombe's final judgment.  But it was altogether opposed
+to Dr. Wortle's feelings.
+
+When Mr. Puddicombe came down from the church to the rectory, Lord
+Carstairs was walking home after the afternoon service with Miss Wortle.
+It was his custom to go to church with the family, whereas the school went
+there under the charge of one of the ushers and sat apart in a portion of
+the church appropriated to themselves.  Mrs. Wortle, when she found that
+the Doctor was not going to the afternoon service, declined to go herself.
+She was thoroughly disturbed by all these bad tidings, and was, indeed,
+very little able to say her prayers in a fit state of mind.  She could
+hardly keep herself still for a moment, and was as one who thinks that the
+crack of doom is coming;--so terrible to her was her vicinity and
+connection with this man, and with the woman who was not his wife.  Then,
+again, she became flurried when she found that Lord Carstairs and Mary
+would have to walk alone together; and she made little abortive attempts
+to keep first the one and then the other from going to church.  Mary
+probably saw no reason for staying away, while Lord Carstairs possibly
+found an additional reason for going.  Poor Mrs. Wortle had for some weeks
+past wished that the charming young nobleman had been at home with his
+father and mother, or anywhere but in her house.  It had been arranged,
+however, that he should go in July and not return after the summer
+holidays.  Under these circumstances, having full confidence in her girl,
+she had refrained from again expressing her fears to the Doctor.  But
+there were fears.  It was evident to her, though the Doctor seemed to see
+nothing of it, that the young lord was falling in love.  It might be that
+his youth and natural bashfulness would come to her aid, and that nothing
+should be said before that day in July which would separate them.  But
+when it suddenly occurred to her that they two would walk to and fro from
+church together, there was cause for additional uneasiness.
+
+If she had heard their conversation as they came back she would have been
+in no way disturbed by its tone on the score of the young man's tenderness
+towards her daughter, but she might perhaps have been surprised by his
+vehemence in another respect.  She would have been surprised also at
+finding how much had been said during the last twenty-four hours by others
+besides herself and her husband about the affairs of Mr. and Mrs.
+Peacocke.
+
+"Do you know what he came about?" asked Mary.  The "he" had of course been
+Robert Lefroy.
+
+"Not in the least; but he came up there looking so queer, as though he
+certainly had come about something unpleasant."
+
+"And then he was with papa afterwards," said Mary.  "I am sure papa and
+mamma not coming to church has something to do with it.  And Mr. Peacocke
+hasn't been to church all day."
+
+"Something has happened to make him very unhappy," said the boy.  "He told
+me so even before this man came here.  I don't know any one whom I like so
+much as Mr. Peacocke."
+
+"I think it is about his wife," said Mary.
+
+"How about his wife?"
+
+"I don't know, but I think it is.  She is so very quiet."
+
+"How quiet, Miss Wortle?" he asked.
+
+"She never will come in to see us.  Mamma has asked her to dinner and to
+drink tea ever so often, but she never comes.  She calls perhaps once in
+two or three months in a formal way, and that is all we see of her."
+
+"Do you like her?" he asked.
+
+"How can I say, when I so seldom see her."
+
+"I do.  I like her very much.  I go and see her often; and I'm sure of
+this;--she is quite a lady.  Mamma asked her to go to Carstairs for the
+holidays because of what I said."
+
+"She is not going?"
+
+"No; neither of them will come.  I wish they would; and oh, Miss Wortle, I
+do so wish you were going to be there too."  This is all that was said of
+peculiar tenderness between them on that walk home.
+
+Late in the evening,--so late that the boys had already gone to bed,--the
+Doctor sent again for Mr. Peacocke.  "I should not have troubled you
+to-night," he said, "only that I have heard something from Pritchett."
+Pritchett was the rectory gardener who had charge also of the school
+buildings, and was a person of great authority in the establishment.  He,
+as well the Doctor, held Mr. Peacocke in great respect, and would have
+been almost as unwilling as the Doctor himself to tell stories to the
+schoolmaster's discredit.  "They are saying down at the Lamb"--the Lamb
+was the Bowick public-house--"that Lefroy told them all yesterday----" the
+Doctor hesitated before he could tell it.
+
+"That my wife is not my wife?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"Of course I am prepared for it.  I knew that it would be so; did not
+you?"
+
+"I expected it."
+
+"I was sure of it.  It may be taken for granted at once that there is no
+longer a secret to keep.  I would wish you to act just as though all the
+facts were known to the entire diocese."  After this there was a pause,
+during which neither of them spoke for a few moments.  The Doctor had not
+intended to declare any purpose of his own on that occasion, but it seemed
+to him now as though he were almost driven to do so.  Then Mr. Peacocke
+seeing the difficulty at once relieved him from it.  "I am quite prepared
+to leave Bowick," he said, "at once.  I know that it must be so.  I have
+thought about it, and have perceived that there is no possible
+alternative.  I should like to consult with you as to whither I had better
+go.  Where shall I first take her?"
+
+"Leave her here," said the Doctor.
+
+"Here!  Where?"
+
+"Where she is in the school-house.  No one will come to fill your place
+for a while."
+
+"I should have thought," said Mr. Peacocke very slowly, "that her
+presence--would have been worse almost,--than my own."
+
+"To me,"--said the Doctor,--"to me she is as pure as the most unsullied
+matron in the country."  Upon this Mr. Peacocke, jumping from his chair,
+seized the Doctor's hand, but could not speak for his tears; then he
+seated himself again, turning his face away towards the wall.  "To no one
+could the presence of either of you be an evil.  The evil is, if I may say
+so, that the two of you should be here together.  You should be
+apart,--till some better day has come upon you."
+
+"What better day can ever come?" said the poor man through his tears.
+
+Then the Doctor declared his scheme.  He told what he thought as to
+Ferdinand Lefroy, and his reason for believing that the man was dead.  "I
+felt sure from his manner that his brother is now dead in truth.  Go to
+him and ask him boldly," he said.
+
+"But his word would not suffice for another marriage ceremony."
+
+To this the Doctor agreed.  It was not his intention, he said, that they
+should proceed on evidence as slight as that.  No; a step must be taken
+much more serious in its importance, and occupying a considerable time.
+He, Peacocke, must go again to Missouri and find out all the truth.  The
+Doctor was of opinion that if this were resolved upon, and that if the
+whole truth were at once proclaimed, then Mr. Peacocke need not hesitate
+to pay Robert Lefroy for any information which might assist him in his
+search.  "While you are gone," continued the Doctor almost wildly, "let
+bishops and Stantiloups and Puddicombes say what they may, she shall
+remain here.  To say that she will be happy is of course vain.  There can
+be no happiness for her till this has been put right.  But she will be
+safe; and here, at my hand, she will, I think, be free from insult.  What
+better is there to be done?"
+
+"There can be nothing better," said Peacocke drawing his breath,--as
+though a gleam of light had shone in upon him.
+
+"I had not meant to have spoken to you of this till to-morrow.  I should
+not have done so, but that Pritchett had been with me.  But the more I
+thought of it, the more sure I became that you could not both
+remain,--till something had been done; till something had been done."
+
+"I was sure of it, Dr. Wortle."
+
+"Mr. Puddicombe saw that it was so.  Mr. Puddicombe is not all the world
+to me by any means, but he is a man of common sense.  I will be frank with
+you.  My wife said that it could not be so."
+
+"She shall not stay.  Mrs. Wortle shall not be annoyed."
+
+"You don't see it yet," said the Doctor.  "But you do.  I know you do.
+And she shall stay.  The house shall be hers, as her residence, for the
+next six months.  As for money----"
+
+"I have got what will do for that, I think."
+
+"If she wants money she shall have what she wants.  There is nothing I
+will not do for you in your trouble,--except that you may not both be here
+together till I shall have shaken hands with her as Mrs. Peacocke in very
+truth."
+
+It was settled that Mr. Peacocke should not go again into the school, or
+Mrs. Peacocke among the boys, till he should have gone to America and have
+come back.  It was explained in the school by the Doctor early,--for the
+Doctor must now take the morning school himself,--that circumstances of
+very grave import made it necessary that Mr. Peacocke should start at once
+for America.  That the tidings which had been published at the Lamb would
+reach the boys, was more than probable.  Nay; was it not certain?  It
+would of course reach all the boys' parents.  There was no use, no
+service, in any secrecy.  But in speaking to the school not a word was
+said of Mrs. Peacocke.  The Doctor explained that he himself would take
+the morning school, and that Mr. Rose, the mathematical master, would take
+charge of the school meals.  Mrs. Cane, the house-keeper, would look to
+the linen and the bed-rooms.  It was made plain that Mrs. Peacocke's
+services were not to be required; but her name was not mentioned,--except
+that the Doctor, in order to let it be understood that she was not to be
+banished from the house, begged the boys as a favour that they would not
+interrupt Mrs. Peacocke's tranquillity during Mr. Peacocke's absence.
+
+On the Tuesday morning Mr. Peacocke started, remaining, however, a couple
+of days at Broughton, during which the Doctor saw him.  Lefroy declared
+that he knew nothing about his brother,--whether he were alive or dead.
+He might be dead, because he was always in trouble, and generally drunk.
+Robert, on the whole, thought it probable that he was dead, but could not
+be got to say so.  For a thousand dollars he would go over to Missouri,
+and, if necessary to Texas, so as to find the truth.  He would then come
+back and give undeniable evidence.  While making this benevolent offer, he
+declared, with tears in his eyes, that he had come over intending to be a
+true brother to his sister-in-law, and had simply been deterred from
+prosecuting his good intentions by Peacocke's austerity.  Then he swore a
+most solemn oath that if he knew anything about his brother Ferdinand he
+would reveal it.  The Doctor and Peacocke agreed together that the man's
+word was worth nothing; but that the man's services might be useful in
+enabling them to track out the truth.  They were both convinced, by words
+which fell from him, that Ferdinand Lefroy was dead; but this would be of
+no avail unless they could obtain absolute evidence.
+
+During these two days there were various conversations at Broughton
+between the Doctor, Mr. Peacocke, and Lefroy, in which a plan of action
+was at length arranged.  Lefroy and the schoolmaster were to proceed to
+America together, and there obtain what evidence they could as to the life
+or death of the elder brother.  When absolute evidence had been obtained
+of either, a thousand dollars was to be handed to Robert Lefroy.  But when
+this agreement was made the man was given to understand that his own
+uncorroborated word would go for nothing.
+
+"Who is to say what is evidence, and what not?" asked the man, not
+unnaturally.
+
+"Mr. Peacocke must be the judge," said the Doctor.
+
+"I ain't going to agree to that," said the other.  "Though he were to see
+him dead, he might swear he hadn't, and not give me a red cent.  Why ain't
+I to be judge as well as he?"
+
+"Because you can trust him, and he cannot in the least trust you," said
+the Doctor.  "You know well enough that if he were to see your brother
+alive, or to see him dead, you would get the money.  At any rate, you
+have no other way of getting it but what we propose."  To all this Robert
+Lefroy at last assented.
+
+The prospect before Mr. Peacocke for the next three months was certainly
+very sad.  He was to travel from Broughton to St. Louis, and possibly from
+thence down into the wilds of Texas, in company with this man, whom he
+thoroughly despised.  Nothing could be more abominable to him than such an
+association; but there was no other way in which the proposed plan could
+be carried out.  He was to pay Lefroy's expenses back to his own country,
+and could only hope to keep the man true to his purpose by doing so from
+day to day.  Were he to give the man money, the man would at once
+disappear.  Here in England, and in their passage across the ocean, the
+man might, in some degree, be amenable and obedient.  But there was no
+knowing to what he might have recourse when he should find himself nearer
+to his country, and should feel that his companion was distant from his
+own.
+
+"You'll have to keep a close watch upon him," whispered the Doctor to his
+friend.  "I should not advise all this if I did not think you were a man
+of strong nerve."
+
+"I am not afraid," said the other; "but I doubt whether he may not be too
+many for me.  At any rate, I will try it.  You will hear from me as I go
+on."
+
+And so they parted as dear friends part.  The Doctor had, in truth, taken
+the man altogether to his heart since all the circumstances of the story
+had come home to him.  And it need hardly be said that the other was aware
+how deep a debt of gratitude he owed to the protector of his wife.  Indeed
+the very money that was to be paid to Robert Lefroy, if he earned it, was
+advanced out of the Doctor's pocket.  Mr. Peacocke's means were sufficient
+for the expenses of the journey, but fell short when these thousand
+dollars had to be provided.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE BISHOP.
+
+MR. PEACOCKE had been quite right in saying that the secret would at once
+be known through the whole diocese.  It certainly was so before he had
+been gone a week, and it certainly was the case also that the diocese
+generally did not approve of the Doctor's conduct.  The woman ought not to
+have been left there.  So said the diocese.  It was of course the case,
+that though the diocese knew much, it did not know all.  It is impossible
+to keep such a story concealed, but it is quite as impossible to make
+known all its details.  In the eyes of the diocese the woman was of course
+the chief sinner, and the chief sinner was allowed to remain at the
+school!  When this assertion was made to him the Doctor became very angry,
+saying that Mrs. Peacocke did not remain at the school; that, according to
+the arrangement as at present made, Mrs. Peacocke had nothing to do with
+the school; that the house was his own, and that he might lend it to whom
+he pleased.  Was he to turn the woman out houseless, when her husband had
+gone, on such an errand, on his advice?  Of course the house was his own,
+but as clergyman of the parish he had not a right to do what he liked with
+it.  He had no right to encourage evil.  And the man was not the woman's
+husband.  That was just the point made by the diocese.  And she was at the
+school,--living under the same roof with the boys!  The diocese was
+clearly of opinion that all the boys would be taken away.
+
+The diocese spoke by the voice of its bishop, as a diocese should do.
+Shortly after Mr. Peacocke's departure, the Doctor had an interview with
+his lordship, and told the whole story.  The doing this went much against
+the grain with him, but he hardly dared not to do it.  He felt that he was
+bound to do it on the part of Mrs. Peacocke if not on his own.  And then
+the man, who had now gone, though he had never been absolutely a curate,
+had preached frequently in the diocese.  He felt that it would not be wise
+to abstain from telling the bishop.
+
+The bishop was a goodly man, comely in his person, and possessed of
+manners which had made him popular in the world.  He was one of those who
+had done the best he could with his talent, not wrapping it up in a
+napkin, but getting from it the best interest which the world's market
+could afford.  But not on that account was he other than a good man.  To
+do the best he could for himself and his family,--and also to do his
+duty,--was the line of conduct which he pursued.  There are some who
+reverse this order, but he was not one of them.  He had become a scholar
+in his youth, not from love of scholarship, but as a means to success.
+The Church had become his profession, and he had worked hard at his
+calling.  He had taught himself to be courteous and urbane, because he had
+been clever enough to see that courtesy and urbanity are agreeable to men
+in high places.  As a bishop he never spared himself the work which a
+bishop ought to do.  He answered letters, he studied the characters of the
+clergymen under him, he was just with his patronage, he endeavoured to be
+efficacious with his charges, he confirmed children in cold weather as
+well as in warm, he occasionally preached sermons, and he was beautiful
+and decorous in his gait of manner, as it behoves a clergyman of the
+Church of England to be.  He liked to be master; but even to be master he
+would not encounter the abominable nuisance of a quarrel.  When first
+coming to the diocese he had had some little difficulty with our Doctor;
+but the Bishop had abstained from violent assertion, and they had, on the
+whole, been friends.  There was, however, on the Bishop's part, something
+of a feeling that the Doctor was the bigger man; and it was probable that,
+without active malignity, he would take advantage of any chance which
+might lower the Doctor a little, and bring him more within episcopal
+power.  In some degree he begrudged the Doctor his manliness.
+
+He listened with many smiles and with perfect courtesy to the story as it
+was told to him, and was much less severe on the unfortunates than Mr.
+Puddicombe had been.  It was not the wickedness of the two people in
+living together, or their wickedness in keeping their secret, which
+offended him so much, as the evil which they were likely to do,--and to
+have done.  "No doubt," he said, "an ill-living man may preach a good
+sermon, perhaps a better one than a pious God-fearing clergyman, whose
+intellect may be inferior though his morals are much better;--but coming
+from tainted lips, the better sermon will not carry a blessing with it."
+At this the Doctor shook his head.  "Bringing a blessing" was a phrase
+which the Doctor hated.  He shook his head not too civilly, saying that he
+had not intended to trouble his lordship on so difficult a point in
+ecclesiastical morals.  "But we cannot but remember," said the Bishop,
+"that he has been preaching in your parish church, and the people will
+know that he has acted among them as a clergyman."
+
+"I hope the people, my lord, may never have the Gospel preached to them by
+a worse man."
+
+"I will not judge him; but I do think that it has been a misfortune.  You,
+of course, were in ignorance."
+
+"Had I known all about it, I should have been very much inclined to do the
+same."
+
+This was, in fact, not true, and was said simply in a spirit of
+contradiction.  The Bishop shook his head and smiled.  "My school is a
+matter of more importance," said the Doctor.
+
+"Hardly, hardly, Dr. Wortle."
+
+"Of more importance in this way, that my school may probably be injured,
+whereas neither the morals nor the faith of the parishioners will have
+been hurt."
+
+"But he has gone."
+
+"He has gone;--but she remains."
+
+"What!" exclaimed the Bishop.
+
+"He has gone, but she remains."  He repeated the words very distinctly,
+with a frown on his brow, as though to show that on that branch of the
+subject he intended to put up with no opposition,--hardly even with an
+adverse opinion.
+
+"She had a certain charge, as I understand,--as to the school."
+
+"She had, my lord; and very well she did her work.  I shall have a great
+loss in her,--for the present."
+
+"But you said she remained."
+
+"I have lent her the use of the house till her husband shall come back."
+
+"Mr. Peacocke, you mean," said the Bishop, who was unable not to put in a
+contradiction against the untruth of the word which had been used.
+
+"I shall always regard them as married."
+
+"But they are not."
+
+"I have lent her the house, at any rate, during his absence.  I could not
+turn her into the street."
+
+"Would not a lodging here in the city have suited her better?"
+
+"I thought not.  People here would have refused to take her,--because of
+her story.  The wife of some religious grocer, who sands his sugar
+regularly, would have thought her house contaminated by such an inmate."
+
+"So it would have been, Doctor, to some extent."  At hearing this the
+Doctor made very evident signs of discontent.  "You cannot alter the ways
+of the world suddenly, though by example and precept you may help to
+improve them slowly.  In our present imperfect condition of moral culture,
+it is perhaps well that the company of the guilty should be shunned."
+
+"Guilty!"
+
+"I am afraid that I must say so.  The knowledge that such a feeling exists
+no doubt deters others from guilt.  The fact that wrong-doing in women is
+scorned helps to maintain the innocence of women.  Is it not so?"
+
+"I must hesitate before I trouble your lordship by arguing such difficult
+questions.  I thought it right to tell you the facts after what had
+occurred.  He has gone, she is there,--and there she will remain for the
+present.  I could not turn her out.  Thinking her, as I do, worthy of my
+friendship, I could not do other than befriend her."
+
+"Of course you must be the judge yourself."
+
+"I had to be the judge, my lord."
+
+"I am afraid that the parents of the boys will not understand it."
+
+"I also am afraid.  It will be very hard to make them understand it.
+There will be some who will work hard to make them misunderstand it."
+
+"I hope not that."
+
+"There will.  I must stand the brunt of it.  I have had battles before
+this, and had hoped that now, when I am getting old, they might have been
+at an end.  But there is something left of me, and I can fight still.  At
+any rate, I have made up my mind about this.  There she shall remain till
+he comes back to fetch her."  And so the interview was over, the Bishop
+feeling that he had in some slight degree had the best of it,--and the
+Doctor feeling that he, in some slight degree, had had the worst.  If
+possible, he would not talk to the Bishop on the subject again.
+
+He told Mr. Puddicombe also.  "With your generosity and kindness of heart
+I quite sympathise," said Mr. Puddicombe, endeavouring to be pleasant in
+his manner.
+
+"But not with my prudence."
+
+"Not with your prudence," said Mr. Puddicombe, endeavouring to be true at
+the same time.
+
+But the Doctor's greatest difficulty was with his wife, whose conduct it
+was necessary that he should guide, and whose feelings and conscience he
+was most anxious to influence.  When she first heard his decision she
+almost wrung her hands in despair.  If the woman could have gone to
+America, and the man have remained, she would have been satisfied.
+Anything wrong about a man was but of little moment,--comparatively so,
+even though he were a clergyman; but anything wrong about a woman,--and
+she so near to herself!  O dear!  And the poor dear boys,--under the same
+roof with her!  And the boys' mammas!  How would she be able to endure the
+sight of that horrid Mrs. Stantiloup;--or Mrs. Stantiloup's words, which
+would certainly be conveyed to her?  But there was something much worse
+for her even than all this.  The Doctor insisted that she should go and
+call upon the woman!  "And take Mary?" asked Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"What would be the good of taking Mary?  Who is talking of a child like
+that?  It is for the sake of charity,--for the dear love of Christ, that I
+ask you to do it.  Do you ever think of Mary Magdalene?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"This is no Magdalene.  This is a woman led into no faults by vicious
+propensities.  Here is one who has been altogether unfortunate,--who has
+been treated more cruelly than any of whom you have ever read."
+
+"Why did she not leave him?"
+
+"Because she was a woman, with a heart in her bosom."
+
+"I am to go to her?"
+
+"I do not order it.  I only ask it."  Such asking from her husband was,
+she knew, very near alike to ordering.
+
+"What shall I say to her?"
+
+"Bid her keep up her courage till he shall return.  If you were all alone,
+as she is, would not you wish that some other woman should come to comfort
+you?  Think of her desolation."
+
+Mrs. Wortle did think of it, and after a day or two made up her mind to
+obey her husband's--request.  She made her call, but very little came of
+it, except that she promised to come again.  "Mrs. Wortle," said the poor
+woman, "pray do not let me be a trouble to you.  If you stay away I shall
+quite understand that there is sufficient reason.  I know how good your
+husband has been to us."  Mrs. Wortle said, however, as she took her
+leave, that she would come again in a day or two.
+
+But there were other troubles in store for Mrs. Wortle.  Before she had
+repeated her visit to Mrs. Peacocke, a lady, who lived about ten miles
+off, the wife of the Rector of Buttercup, called upon her.  This was the
+Lady Margaret Momson, a daughter of the Earl of Brigstock, who had, thirty
+years ago, married a young clergyman.  Nevertheless, up to the present
+day, she was quite as much the Earl's daughter as the parson's wife.  She
+was first cousin to that Mrs. Stantiloup between whom and the Doctor
+internecine war was always being waged; and she was also aunt to a boy at
+the school, who, however, was in no way related to Mrs. Stantiloup, young
+Momson being the son of the parson's eldest brother.  Lady Margaret had
+never absolutely and openly taken the part of Mrs. Stantiloup.  Had she
+done so, a visit even of ceremony would have been impossible.  But she was
+supposed to have Stantiloup proclivities, and was not, therefore, much
+liked at Bowick.  There had been a question indeed whether young Momson
+should be received at the school,--because of the _quasi_ connection with
+the arch-enemy; but Squire Momson of Buttercup, the boy's father, had set
+that at rest by bursting out, in the Doctor's hearing, into violent abuse
+against "the close-fisted, vulgar old faggot."  The son of a man imbued
+with such proper feelings was, of course, accepted.
+
+But Lady Margaret was proud,--especially at the present time.  "What a
+romance this is, Mrs. Wortle," she said, "that has gone all through the
+diocese!"  The reader will remember that Lady Margaret was also the wife
+of a clergyman.
+
+"You mean--the Peacockes?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"He has gone away."
+
+"We all know that, of course;--to look for his wife's husband.  Good
+gracious me!  What a story!"
+
+"They think that he is--dead now."
+
+"I suppose they thought so before," said Lady Margaret.
+
+"Of course they did."
+
+"Though it does seem that no inquiry was made at all.  Perhaps they don't
+care about those things over there as we do here.  He couldn't have cared
+very much,--nor she."
+
+"The Doctor thinks that they are very much to be pitied."
+
+"The Doctor always was a little Quixotic--eh?"
+
+"I don't think that at all, Lady Margaret."
+
+"I mean in the way of being so very good-natured and kind.  Her brother
+came;--didn't he?"
+
+"Her first husband's brother," said Mrs. Wortle, blushing.
+
+"Her first husband!"
+
+"Well;--you know what I mean, Lady Margaret."
+
+"Yes; I know what you mean.  It is so very shocking; isn't it?  And so the
+two men have gone off together to look for the third.  Goodness me;--what
+a party they will be if they meet!  Do you think they'll quarrel?"
+
+"I don't know, Lady Margaret."
+
+"And that he should be a clergyman of the Church of England!  Isn't it
+dreadful?  What does the Bishop say?  Has he heard all about it?"
+
+"The Bishop has nothing to do with it.  Mr. Peacocke never held a curacy
+in the diocese."
+
+"But he has preached here very often,--and has taken her to church with
+him!  I suppose the Bishop has been told?"
+
+"You may be sure that he knows it as well as you."
+
+"We are so anxious, you know, about dear little Gus."  Dear little Gus
+was Augustus Momson, the lady's nephew, who was supposed to be the
+worst-behaved, and certainly the stupidest boy in the school.
+
+"Augustus will not be hurt, I should say."
+
+"Perhaps not directly.  But my sister has, I know, very strong opinions on
+such subjects.  Now, I want to ask you one thing.  Is it true
+that--she--remains here?"
+
+"She is still living in the school-house."
+
+"Is that prudent, Mrs. Wortle?"
+
+"If you want to have an opinion on that subject, Lady Margaret, I would
+recommend you to ask the Doctor."  By which she meant to assert that Lady
+Margaret would not, for the life of her, dare to ask the Doctor such a
+question.  "He has done what he has thought best."
+
+"Most good-natured, you mean, Mrs. Wortle."
+
+"I mean what I say, Lady Margaret.  He has done what he has thought best,
+looking at all the circumstances.  He thinks that they are very worthy
+people, and that they have been most cruelly ill-used.  He has taken that
+into consideration.  You call it good-nature.  Others perhaps may call
+it--charity."  The wife, though she at her heart deplored her husband's
+action in the matter, was not going to own to another lady that he had
+been imprudent.
+
+"I am sure I hope they will," said Lady Margaret.  Then as she was taking
+her leave, she made a suggestion.  "Some of the boys will be taken away, I
+suppose.  The Doctor probably expects that."
+
+"I don't know what he expects," said Mrs. Wortle.  "Some are always going,
+and when they go, others come in their places.  As for me, I wish he would
+give the school up altogether."
+
+"Perhaps he means it," said Lady Margaret; "otherwise, perhaps he wouldn't
+have been so good-natured."  Then she took her departure.
+
+When her visitor was gone Mrs. Wortle was very unhappy.  She had been
+betrayed by her wrath into expressing that wish as to the giving up of the
+school.  She knew well that the Doctor had no such intention.  She herself
+had more than once suggested it in her timid way, but the Doctor had
+treated her suggestions as being worth nothing.  He had his ideas about
+Mary, who was undoubtedly a very pretty girl.  Mary might marry well, and
+L20,000 would probably assist her in doing so.
+
+When he was told of Lady Margaret's hints, he said in his wrath that he
+would send young Momson away instantly if a word was said to him by the
+boy's mamma.  "Of course," said he, "if the lad turns out a scapegrace, as
+is like enough, it will be because Mrs. Peacocke had two husbands.  It is
+often a question to me whether the religion of the world is not more
+odious than its want of religion."  To this terrible suggestion poor Mrs.
+Wortle did not dare to make any answer whatever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE STANTILOUP CORRESPONDENCE.
+
+WE will now pass for a moment out of Bowick parish, and go over to
+Buttercup.  There, at Buttercup Hall, the squire's house, in the
+drawing-room, were assembled Mrs. Momson, the squire's wife; Lady Margaret
+Momson, the Rector's wife; Mrs. Rolland, the wife of the Bishop; and the
+Hon. Mrs. Stantiloup.  A party was staying in the house, collected for the
+purpose of entertaining the Bishop; and it would perhaps not have been
+possible to have got together in the diocese, four ladies more likely to
+be hard upon our Doctor.  For though Squire Momson was not very fond of
+Mrs. Stantiloup, and had used strong language respecting her when he was
+anxious to send his boy to the Doctor's school, Mrs. Momson had always
+been of the other party, and had in fact adhered to Mrs. Stantiloup from
+the beginning of the quarrel.  "I do trust," said Mrs. Stantiloup, "that
+there will be an end to all this kind of thing now."
+
+"Do you mean an end to the school?" asked Lady Margaret.
+
+"I do indeed.  I always thought it matter of great regret that Augustus
+should have been sent there, after the scandalous treatment that Bob
+received."  Bob was the little boy who had drank the champagne and
+required the carriage exercise.
+
+"But I always heard that the school was quite popular," said Mrs. Rolland.
+
+"I think you'll find," continued Mrs. Stantiloup, "that there won't be
+much left of its popularity now.  Keeping that abominable woman under the
+same roof with the boys!  No master of a school that wasn't absolutely
+blown up with pride, would have taken such people as those Peacockes
+without making proper inquiry.  And then to let him preach in the church!
+I suppose Mr. Momson will allow you to send for Augustus at once?"  This
+she said turning to Mrs. Momson.
+
+"Mr. Momson thinks so much of the Doctor's scholarship," said the mother,
+apologetically.  "And we are so anxious that Gus should do well when he
+goes to Eton."
+
+"What is Latin and Greek as compared to his soul?" asked Lady Margaret.
+
+"No, indeed," said Mrs. Rolland.  She had found herself compelled, as wife
+of the Bishop, to assent to the self-evident proposition which had been
+made.  She was a quiet, silent little woman, whom the Bishop had married
+in the days of his earliest preferment, and who, though she was delighted
+to find herself promoted to the society of the big people in the diocese,
+had never quite lifted herself up into their sphere.  Though she had her
+ideas as to what it was to be a Bishop's wife, she had never yet been
+quite able to act up to them.
+
+"I know that young Talbot is to leave," said Mrs. Stantiloup.  "I wrote to
+Mrs. Talbot immediately when all this occurred, and I've heard from her
+cousin Lady Grogram that the boy is not to go back after the holidays."
+This happened to be altogether untrue.  What she probably meant was, that
+the boy should not go back if she could prevent his doing so.
+
+"I feel quite sure," said Lady Margaret, "that Lady Anne will not allow
+her boys to remain when she finds out what sort of inmates the Doctor
+chooses to entertain."  The Lady Anne spoken of was Lady Anne Clifford,
+the widowed mother of two boys who were intrusted to the Doctor's care.
+
+"I do hope you'll be firm about Gus," said Mrs. Stantiloup to Mrs. Momson.
+"If we're not to put down this kind of thing, what is the good of having
+any morals in the country at all?  We might just as well live like pagans,
+and do without any marriage services, as they do in so many parts of the
+United States."
+
+"I wonder what the Bishop does think about it?" asked Mrs. Momson of the
+Bishop's wife.
+
+"It makes him very unhappy; I know that," said Mrs. Rolland.  "Of course
+he cannot interfere about the school.  As for licensing the gentleman as a
+curate, that was of course quite out of the question."
+
+At this moment Mr. Momson, the clergyman, and the Bishop came into the
+room, and were offered, as is usual on such occasions, cold tea and the
+remains of the buttered toast.  The squire was not there.  Had he been
+with the other gentlemen, Mrs. Stantiloup, violent as she was, would
+probably have held her tongue; but as he was absent, the opportunity was
+not bad for attacking the Bishop on the subject under discussion.  "We
+were talking, my lord, about the Bowick school."
+
+Now the Bishop was a man who could be very confidential with one lady, but
+was apt to be guarded when men are concerned.  To any one of those present
+he might have said what he thought, had no one else been there to hear.
+That would have been the expression of a private opinion; but to speak
+before the four would have been tantamount to a public declaration.
+
+"About the Bowick school?" said he; "I hope there is nothing going wrong
+with the Bowick school."
+
+"You must have heard about Mr. Peacocke," said Lady Margaret.
+
+"Yes; I have certainly heard of Mr. Peacocke.  He, I believe, has left Dr.
+Wortle's seminary."
+
+"But she remains!" said Mrs. Stantiloup, with tragic energy.
+
+"So I understand;--in the house; but not as part of the establishment."
+
+"Does that make so much difference?" asked Lady Margaret.
+
+"It does make a very great difference," said Lady Margaret's husband, the
+parson, wishing to help the Bishop in his difficulty.
+
+"I don't see it at all," said Mrs. Stantiloup.  "The main spirit in the
+matter is just as manifest whether the lady is or is not allowed to look
+after the boys' linen.  In fact, I despise him for making the pretence.
+Her doing menial work about the house would injure no one.  It is her
+presence there,--the presence of a woman who has falsely pretended to be
+married, when she knew very well that she had no husband."
+
+"When she knew that she had two," said Lady Margaret.
+
+"And fancy, Lady Margaret,--Lady Bracy absolutely asked her to go to
+Carstairs!  That woman was always infatuated about Dr. Wortle.  What would
+she have done if they had gone, and this other man had followed his
+sister-in-law there.  But Lord and Lady Bracy would ask any one to
+Carstairs,--just any one that they could get hold of!"
+
+Mr. Momson was one whose obstinacy was wont to give way when sufficiently
+attacked.  Even he, after having been for two days subjected to the
+eloquence of Mrs. Stantiloup, acknowledged that the Doctor took a great
+deal too much upon himself.  "He does it," said Mrs. Stantiloup, "just to
+show that there is nothing that he can't bring parents to assent to.
+Fancy,--a woman living there as house-keeper with a man as usher,
+pretending to be husband and wife, when they knew all along that they were
+not married!"
+
+Mr. Momson, who didn't care a straw about the morals of the man whose duty
+it was to teach his little boy his Latin grammar, or the morals of the
+woman who looked after his little boy's waistcoats and trousers, gave a
+half-assenting grunt.  "And you are to pay," continued Mrs. Stantiloup,
+with considerable emphasis,--"you are to pay two hundred and fifty pounds
+a-year for such conduct as that!"
+
+"Two hundred," suggested the squire, who cared as little for the money as
+he did for the morals.
+
+"Two hundred and fifty,--every shilling of it, when you consider the
+extras."
+
+"There are no extras, as far as I can see.  But then my boy is strong and
+healthy, thank God," said the squire, taking his opportunity of having one
+fling at the lady.  But while all this was going on, he did give a
+half-assent that Gus should be taken away at midsummer, being partly moved
+thereto by a letter from the Doctor, in which he was told that his boy was
+not doing any good at the school.
+
+It was a week after that that Mrs. Stantiloup wrote the following letter
+to her friend Lady Grogram, after she had returned home from Buttercup
+Hall.  Lady Grogram was a great friend of hers, and was first cousin to
+that Mrs. Talbot who had a son at the school.  Lady Grogram was an old
+woman of strong mind but small means, who was supposed to be potential
+over those connected with her.  Mrs. Stantiloup feared that she could not
+be efficacious herself, either with Mr. or Mrs. Talbot; but she hoped that
+she might carry her purpose through Lady Grogram.  It may be remembered
+that she had declared at Buttercup Hall that young Talbot was not to go
+back to Bowick.  But this had been a figure of speech, as has been already
+explained:--
+
+
+"MY DEAR LADY GROGRAM,--Since I got your last letter I have been staying
+with the Momsons at Buttercup.  It was awfully dull.  He and she are, I
+think, the stupidest people that ever I met.  None of those Momsons have
+an idea among them.  They are just as heavy and inharmonious as their
+name.  Lady Margaret was one of the party.  She would have been better,
+only that our excellent Bishop was there too, and Lady Margaret thought it
+well to show off all her graces before the Bishop and the Bishop's wife.
+I never saw such a dowdy in all my life as Mrs. Rolland.  He is all very
+well, and looks at any rate like a gentleman.  It was, I take it, that
+which got him his diocese.  They say the Queen saw him once, and was taken
+by his manners.
+
+"But I did one good thing at Buttercup.  I got Mr. Momson to promise that
+that boy of his should not go back to Bowick.  Dr. Wortle has become quite
+intolerable.  I think he is determined to show that whatever he does,
+people shall put up with it.  It is not only the most expensive
+establishment of the kind in all England, but also the worst conducted.
+You know, of course, how all this matter about that woman stands now.  She
+is remaining there at Bowick, absolutely living in the house, calling
+herself Mrs. Peacocke, while the man she was living with has gone off with
+her brother-in-law to look for her husband!  Did you ever hear of such a
+mess as that?
+
+"And the Doctor expects that fathers and mothers will still send their
+boys to such a place as that?  I am very much mistaken if he will not find
+it altogether deserted before Christmas.  Lord Carstairs is already gone."
+[This was at any rate disingenuous, as she had been very severe when at
+Buttercup on all the Carstairs family because of their declared and
+perverse friendship for the Doctor.] "Mr. Momson, though he is quite
+incapable of seeing the meaning of anything, has determined to take his
+boy away.  She may thank me at any rate for that.  I have heard that Lady
+Anne Clifford's two boys will both leave."  [In one sense she had heard it,
+because the suggestion had been made by herself at Buttercup.] "I do hope
+that Mr. Talbot's dear little boy will not be allowed to return to such
+contamination as that!  Fancy,--the man and the woman living there in that
+way together; and the Doctor keeping the woman on after he knew it all!
+It is really so horrible that one doesn't know how to talk about it.  When
+the Bishop was at Buttercup I really felt almost obliged to be silent.
+
+"I know very well that Mrs. Talbot is always ready to take your advice.
+As for him, men very often do not think so much about these things as they
+ought.  But he will not like his boy to be nearly the only one left at the
+school.  I have not heard of one who is to remain for certain.  How can it
+be possible that any boy who has a mother should be allowed to remain
+there?
+
+"Do think of this, and do your best.  I need not tell you that nothing
+ought to be so dear to us as a high tone of morals.--Most sincerely yours,
+
+"JULIANA STANTILOUP."
+
+
+We need not pursue this letter further than to say that when it reached
+Mr. Talbot's hands, which it did through his wife, he spoke of Mrs.
+Stantiloup in language which shocked his wife considerably, though she was
+not altogether unaccustomed to strong language on his part.  Mr. Talbot
+and the Doctor had been at school together, and at Oxford, and were
+friends.
+
+I will give now a letter that was written by the Doctor to Mr. Momson in
+answer to one in which that gentleman signified his intention of taking
+little Gus away from the school.
+
+
+"MY DEAR MR. MOMSON,--After what you have said, of course I shall not
+expect your boy back after the holidays.  Tell his mamma, with my
+compliments, that he shall take all his things home with him.  As a rule I
+do charge for a quarter in advance when a boy is taken away suddenly,
+without notice, and apparently without cause.  But I shall not do so at
+the present moment either to you or to any parent who may withdraw his
+son.  A circumstance has happened which, though it cannot impair the
+utility of my school, and ought not to injure its character, may still be
+held as giving offence to certain persons.  I will not be driven to alter
+my conduct by what I believe to be foolish misconception on their part.
+But they have a right to their own opinions, and I will not mulct them
+because of their conscientious convictions.--Yours faithfully,
+
+"JEFFREY WORTLE."
+
+"If you come across any friend who has a boy here, you are perfectly at
+liberty to show him or her this letter."
+
+
+The defection of the Momsons wounded the Doctor, no doubt.  He was aware
+that Mrs. Stantiloup had been at Buttercup, and that the Bishop also had
+been there--and he could put two and two together; but it hurt him to
+think that one so "staunch" though so "stupid" as Mrs. Momson, should be
+turned from her purpose by such a woman as Mrs. Stantiloup.  And he got
+other letters on the subject.  Here is one from Lady Anne Clifford.
+
+
+"DEAR DOCTOR,--You know how safe I think my dear boys are with you, and
+how much obliged I am both to you and your wife for all your kindness.
+But people are saying things to me about one of the masters at your school
+and his wife.  Is there any reason why I should be afraid?  You will see
+how thoroughly I trust you when I ask you the question.--Yours very
+sincerely,
+
+"ANNE CLIFFORD."
+
+
+Now Lady Anne Clifford was a sweet, confiding, affectionate, but not very
+wise woman.  In a letter, written not many days before to Mary Wortle, who
+had on one occasion been staying with her, she said that she was at that
+time in the same house with the Bishop and Mrs. Rolland.  Of course the
+Doctor knew again how to put two and two together.
+
+Then there came a letter from Mr. Talbot--
+
+
+"DEAR WORTLE,--So you are boiling for yourself another pot of hot water.
+I never saw such a fellow as you are for troubles!  Old Mother Shipton has
+been writing such a letter to our old woman, and explaining that no boy's
+soul would any longer be worth looking after if he be left in your hands.
+Don't you go and get me into a scrape more than you can help; but you may
+be quite sure of this that if I had as many sons as Priam I should send
+them all to you;--only I think that the cheques would be very long in
+coming.--Yours always,
+
+"JOHN TALBOT."
+
+
+The Doctor answered this at greater length than he had done in writing to
+Mr. Momson, who was not specially his friend.
+
+
+"MY DEAR TALBOT,--You may be quite sure that I shall not repeat to any one
+what you have told me of Mother Shipton.  I knew, however, pretty well
+what she was doing and what I had to expect from her.  It is astonishing
+to me that such a woman should still have the power of persuading any
+one,--astonishing also that any human being should continue to hate as she
+hates me.  She has often tried to do me an injury, but she has never
+succeeded yet.  At any rate she will not bend me.  Though my school should
+be broken up to-morrow, which I do not think probable, I should still have
+enough to live upon,--which is more, by all accounts, than her unfortunate
+husband can say for himself.
+
+"The facts are these.  More than twelve months ago I got an assistant
+named Peacocke, a clergyman, an Oxford man, and formerly a Fellow of
+Trinity;--a man quite superior to anything I have a right to expect in my
+school.  He had gone as a Classical Professor to a college in the United
+States;--a rash thing to do, no doubt;--and had there married a widow,
+which was rasher still.  The lady came here with him and undertook the
+charge of the school-house,--with a separate salary; and an admirable
+person in the place she was.  Then it turned out, as no doubt you have
+heard, that her former husband was alive when they were married.  They
+ought probably to have separated, but they didn't.  They came here
+instead, and here they were followed by the brother of the husband,--who I
+take it is now dead, though of that we know nothing certain.
+
+"That he should have told me his position is more than any man has a right
+to expect from another.  Fortune had been most unkind to him, and for her
+sake he was bound to do the best that he could with himself.  I cannot
+bring myself to be angry with him, though I cannot defend him by strict
+laws of right and wrong.  I have advised him to go back to America and
+find out if the man be in truth dead.  If so, let him come back and marry
+the woman again before all the world.  I shall be ready to marry them and
+to ask him and her to my house afterwards.
+
+"In the mean time what was to become of her?  'Let her go into lodgings,'
+said the Bishop.  Go to lodgings at Broughton!  You know what sort of
+lodgings she would get there among psalm-singing greengrocers who would
+tell her of her misfortune every day of her life!  I would not subject her
+to the misery of going and seeking for a home.  I told him, when I
+persuaded him to go, that she should have the rooms they were then
+occupying while he was away.  In settling this, of course I had to make
+arrangements for doing in our own establishment the work which had lately
+fallen to her share.  I mention this for the sake of explaining that she
+has got nothing to do with the school.  No doubt the boys are under the
+same roof with her.  Will your boy's morals be the worse?  It seems that
+Gustavus Momson's will.  You know the father; do you not?  I wonder
+whether anything will ever affect his morals?
+
+"Now, I have told you everything.  Not that I have doubted you; but, as
+you have been told so much, I have thought it well that you should have
+the whole story from myself.  What effect it may have upon the school I do
+not know.  The only boy of whose secession I have yet heard is young
+Momson.  But probably there will be others.  Four new boys were to have
+come, but I have already heard from the father of one that he has changed
+his mind.  I think I can trace an acquaintance between him and Mother
+Shipton.  If the body of the school should leave me I will let you know at
+once as you might not like to leave your boy under such circumstances.
+
+"You may be sure of this, that here the lady remains until her husband
+returns.  I am not going to be turned from my purpose at this time of day
+by anything that Mother Shipton may say or do.--Yours always,
+
+"JEFFREY WORTLE."
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+DR. WORTLE'S SCHOOL.
+
+A Novel.
+
+BY
+
+ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Chapman and Hall, Limited, 193, Piccadilly.
+1881.
+
+London:
+R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, Printers,
+Bread Street Hill.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
+
+   PART V.
+
+      CHAPTER I.     MR. PUDDICOMBE'S BOOT
+
+      CHAPTER II.    'EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS'
+
+      CHAPTER III.   "'AMO' IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING"
+
+      CHAPTER IV.    "IT IS IMPOSSIBLE"
+
+      CHAPTER V.     CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE PALACE
+
+      CHAPTER VI.    THE JOURNEY
+
+      CHAPTER VII.   "NOBODY HAS CONDEMNED YOU HERE"
+
+      CHAPTER VIII.  LORD BRACY'S LETTER
+
+      CHAPTER IX.    AT CHICAGO
+
+   CONCLUSION.
+
+      CHAPTER X.     THE DOCTOR'S ANSWER
+
+      CHAPTER XI.    MR. PEACOCKE'S RETURN
+
+      CHAPTER XII.   MARY'S SUCCESS
+
+
+
+DR. WORTLE'S SCHOOL.
+
+PART V.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+MR. PUDDICOMBE'S BOOT.
+
+IT was not to be expected that the matter should be kept out of the county
+newspaper, or even from those in the metropolis.  There was too much of
+romance in the story, too good a tale to be told, for any such hope.  The
+man's former life and the woman's, the disappearance of her husband and
+his reappearance after his reported death, the departure of the couple
+from St. Louis and the coming of Lefroy to Bowick, formed together a most
+attractive subject.  But it could not be told without reference to Dr.
+Wortle's school, to Dr. Wortle's position as clergyman of the parish,--and
+also to the fact which was considered by his enemies to be of all the
+facts the most damning, that Mr. Peacocke had for a time been allowed to
+preach in the parish church.  The 'Broughton Gazette,' a newspaper which
+was supposed to be altogether devoted to the interest of the diocese, was
+very eloquent on this subject.  "We do not desire," said the 'Broughton
+Gazette,' "to make any remarks as to the management of Dr. Wortle's
+school.  We leave all that between him and the parents of the boys who are
+educated there.  We are perfectly aware that Dr. Wortle himself is a
+scholar, and that his school has been deservedly successful.  It is
+advisable, no doubt, that in such an establishment none should be employed
+whose lives are openly immoral;--but as we have said before, it is not our
+purpose to insist upon this.  Parents, if they feel themselves to be
+aggrieved, can remedy the evil by withdrawing their sons.  But when we
+consider the great power which is placed in the hands of an incumbent of a
+parish, that he is endowed as it were with the freehold of his pulpit,
+that he may put up whom he will to preach the Gospel to his parishioners,
+even in a certain degree in opposition to his bishop, we think that we do
+no more than our duty in calling attention to such a case as this."  Then
+the whole story was told at great length, so as to give the "we" of the
+'Broughton Gazette' a happy opportunity of making its leading article not
+only much longer, but much more amusing, than usual.  "We must say,"
+continued the writer, as he concluded his narrative, "that this man should
+not have been allowed to preach in the Bowick pulpit.  He is no doubt a
+clergyman of the Church of England, and Dr. Wortle was within his rights
+in asking for his assistance; but the incumbent of a parish is responsible
+for those he employs, and that responsibility now rests on Dr. Wortle."
+
+There was a great deal in this that made the Doctor very angry,--so angry
+that he did not know how to restrain himself.  The matter had been argued
+as though he had employed the clergyman in his church after he had known
+the history.  "For aught I know," he said to Mrs. Wortle, "any curate
+coming to me might have three wives, all alive."
+
+"That would be most improbable," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"So was all this improbable,--just as improbable.  Nothing could be more
+improbable.  Do we not all feel overcome with pity for the poor woman
+because she encountered trouble that was so improbable?  How much more
+improbable was it that I should come across a clergyman who had
+encountered such improbabilities."  In answer to this Mrs. Wortle could
+only shake her head, not at all understanding the purport of her husband's
+argument.
+
+But what was said about his school hurt him more than what was said about
+his church.  In regard to his church he was impregnable.  Not even the
+Bishop could touch him,--or even annoy him much.  But this
+"penny-a-liner," as the Doctor indignantly called him, had attacked him in
+his tenderest point.  After declaring that he did not intend to meddle
+with the school, he had gone on to point out that an immoral person had
+been employed there, and had then invited all parents to take away their
+sons.  "He doesn't know what moral and immoral means," said the Doctor,
+again pleading his own case to his own wife.  "As far as I know, it would
+be hard to find a man of a higher moral feeling than Mr. Peacocke, or a
+woman than his wife."
+
+"I suppose they ought to have separated when it was found out," said Mrs.
+Wortle.
+
+"No, no," he shouted; "I hold that they were right.  He was right to cling
+to her, and she was bound to obey him.  Such a fellow as that,"--and he
+crushed the paper up in his hand in his wrath, as though he were crushing
+the editor himself,--"such a fellow as that knows nothing of morality,
+nothing of honour, nothing of tenderness.  What he did I would have done,
+and I'll stick to him through it all in spite of the Bishop, in spite of
+the newspapers, and in spite of all the rancour of all my enemies."  Then
+he got up and walked about the room in such a fury that his wife did not
+dare to speak to him.  Should he or should he not answer the newspaper?
+That was a question which for the first two days after he had read the
+article greatly perplexed him.  He would have been very ready to advise
+any other man what to do in such a case.  "Never notice what may be
+written about you in a newspaper," he would have said.  Such is the advice
+which a man always gives to his friend.  But when the case comes to
+himself he finds it sometimes almost impossible to follow it.  "What's the
+use?  Who cares what the 'Broughton Gazette' says? let it pass, and it
+will be forgotten in three days.  If you stir the mud yourself, it will
+hang about you for months.  It is just what they want you to do.  They
+cannot go on by themselves, and so the subject dies away from them; but if
+you write rejoinders they have a contributor working for them for nothing,
+and one whose writing will be much more acceptable to their readers than
+any that comes from their own anonymous scribes.  It is very disagreeable
+to be worried like a rat by a dog; but why should you go into the kennel
+and unnecessarily put yourself in the way of it?"  The Doctor had said
+this more than once to clerical friends who were burning with indignation
+at something that had been written about them.  But now he was burning
+himself, and could hardly keep his fingers from pen and ink.
+
+In this emergency he went to Mr. Puddicombe, not, as he said to himself,
+for advice, but in order that he might hear what Mr. Puddicombe would have
+to say about it.  He did not like Mr. Puddicombe, but he believed in
+him,--which was more than he quite did with the Bishop.  Mr. Puddicombe
+would tell him his true thoughts.  Mr. Puddicombe would be unpleasant very
+likely; but he would be sincere and friendly.  So he went to Mr.
+Puddicombe.  "It seems to me," he said, "almost necessary that I should
+answer such allegations as these for the sake of truth."
+
+"You are not responsible for the truth of the 'Broughton Gazette,"' said
+Mr. Puddicombe.
+
+"But I am responsible to a certain degree that false reports shall not be
+spread abroad as to what is done in my church."
+
+"You can contradict nothing that the newspaper has said."
+
+"It is implied," said the Doctor, "that I allowed Mr. Peacocke to preach
+in my church after I knew his marriage was informal."
+
+"There is no such statement in the paragraph," said Mr. Puddicombe, after
+attentive reperusal of the article.  "The writer has written in a hurry,
+as such writers generally do, but has made no statement such as you
+presume.  Were you to answer him, you could only do so by an elaborate
+statement of the exact facts of the case.  It can hardly be worth your
+while, in defending yourself against the 'Broughton Gazette,' to tell the
+whole story in public of Mr. Peacocke's life and fortunes."
+
+"You would pass it over altogether?"
+
+"Certainly I would."
+
+"And so acknowledge the truth of all that the newspaper says."
+
+"I do not know that the paper says anything untrue," said Mr. Puddicombe,
+not looking the Doctor in the face, with his eyes turned to the ground,
+but evidently with the determination to say what he thought, however
+unpleasant it might be.  "The fact is that you have fallen into
+a--misfortune."
+
+"I don't acknowledge it at all," said the Doctor.
+
+"All your friends at any rate will think so, let the story be told as it
+may.  It was a misfortune that this lady whom you had taken into your
+establishment should have proved not to be the gentleman's wife.  When I
+am taking a walk through the fields and get one of my feet deeper than
+usual into the mud, I always endeavour to bear it as well as I may before
+the eyes of those who meet me rather than make futile efforts to get rid
+of the dirt and look as though nothing had happened.  The dirt, when it is
+rubbed and smudged and scraped is more palpably dirt than the honest mud."
+
+"I will not admit that I am dirty at all," said the Doctor.
+
+"Nor do I, in the case which I describe.  I admit nothing; but I let those
+who see me form their own opinion.  If any one asks me about my boot I
+tell him that it is a matter of no consequence.  I advise you to do the
+same.  You will only make the smudges more palpable if you write to the
+'Broughton Gazette."'
+
+"Would you say nothing to the boys' parents?" asked the Doctor.
+
+"There, perhaps, I am not a judge, as I never kept a school;--but I think
+not.  If any father writes to you, then tell him the truth."
+
+If the matter had gone no farther than this, the Doctor might probably
+have left Mr. Puddicombe's house with a sense of thankfulness for the
+kindness rendered to him; but he did go farther, and endeavoured to
+extract from his friend some sense of the injustice shown by the Bishop,
+the Stantiloups, the newspaper, and his enemies in general through the
+diocese.  But here he failed signally.  "I really think, Dr. Wortle, that
+you could not have expected it otherwise."
+
+"Expect that people should lie?"
+
+"I don't know about lies.  If people have told lies I have not seen them
+or heard them.  I don't think the Bishop has lied."
+
+"I don't mean the Bishop; though I do think that he has shown a great want
+of what I may call liberality towards a clergyman in his diocese."
+
+"No doubt he thinks you have been wrong.  By liberality you mean sympathy.
+Why should you expect him to sympathise with your wrong-doing?"
+
+"What have I done wrong?"
+
+"You have countenanced immorality and deceit in a brother clergyman."
+
+"I deny it," said the Doctor, rising up impetuously from his chair.
+
+"Then I do not understand the position, Dr. Wortle.  That is all I can
+say."
+
+"To my thinking, Mr. Puddicombe, I never came across a better man than Mr.
+Peacocke in my life."
+
+"I cannot make comparisons.  As to the best man I ever met in my life I
+might have to acknowledge that even he had done wrong in certain
+circumstances.  As the matter is forced upon me, I have to express my
+opinion that a great sin was committed both by the man and by the woman.
+You not only condone the sin, but declare both by your words and deeds
+that you sympathise with the sin as well as with the sinners.  You have no
+right to expect that the Bishop will sympathise with you in that;--nor can
+it be but that in such a country as this the voices of many will be loud
+against you."
+
+"And yours as loud as any," said the Doctor, angrily.
+
+"That is unkind and unjust," said Mr. Puddicombe.  "What I have said, I
+have said to yourself, and not to others; and what I have said, I have
+said in answer to questions asked by yourself."  Then the Doctor apologised
+with what grace he could.  But when he left the house his heart was still
+bitter against Mr. Puddicombe.
+
+He was almost ashamed of himself as he rode back to Bowick,--first,
+because he had condescended to ask advice, and then because, after having
+asked it, he had been so thoroughly scolded.  There was no one whom Mr.
+Puddicombe would admit to have been wrong in the matter except the Doctor
+himself.  And yet though he had been so counselled and so scolded, he had
+found himself obliged to apologize before he left the house!  And, too, he
+had been made to understand that he had better not rush into print.
+Though the 'Broughton Gazette' should come to the attack again and again,
+he must hold his peace.  That reference to Mr. Puddicombe's dirty boot had
+convinced him.  He could see the thoroughly squalid look of the boot that
+had been scraped in vain, and appreciate the wholesomeness of the
+unadulterated mud.  There was more in the man than he had ever
+acknowledged before.  There was a consistency in him, and a courage, and
+an honesty of purpose.  But there was no softness of heart.  Had there
+been a grain of tenderness there, he could not have spoken so often as he
+had done of Mrs. Peacocke without expressing some grief at the unmerited
+sorrows to which that poor lady had been subjected.
+
+His own heart melted with ruth as he thought, while riding home, of the
+cruelty to which she had been and was subjected.  She was all alone there,
+waiting, waiting, waiting, till the dreary days should have gone by.  And
+if no good news should come, if Mr. Peacocke should return with tidings
+that her husband was alive and well, what should she do then?  What would
+the world then have in store for her?  "If it were me," said the Doctor to
+himself, "I'd take her to some other home and treat her as my wife in
+spite of all the Puddicombes in creation;--in spite of all the bishops."
+
+The Doctor, though he was a self-asserting and somewhat violent man, was
+thoroughly soft-hearted.  It is to be hoped that the reader has already
+learned as much as that;--a man with a kind, tender, affectionate nature.
+It would perhaps be unfair to raise a question whether he would have done
+as much, been so willing to sacrifice himself, for a plain woman.  Had Mr.
+Stantiloup, or Sir Samuel Griffin if he had suddenly come again to life,
+been found to have prior wives also living, would the Doctor have found
+shelter for them in their ignominy and trouble?  Mrs. Wortle, who knew her
+husband thoroughly, was sure that he would not have done so.  Mrs.
+Peacocke was a very beautiful woman, and the Doctor was a man who
+thoroughly admired beauty.  To say that Mrs. Wortle was jealous would be
+quite untrue.  She liked to see her husband talking to a pretty woman,
+because he would be sure to be in a good humour and sure to make the best
+of himself.  She loved to see him shine.  But she almost wished that Mrs.
+Peacocke had been ugly, because there would not then have been so much
+danger about the school.
+
+"I'm just going up to see her," said the Doctor, as soon as he got
+home,--"just to ask her what she wants."
+
+"I don't think she wants anything," said Mrs. Wortle, weakly.
+
+"Does she not?  She must be a very odd woman if she can live there all day
+alone, and not want to see a human creature."
+
+"I was with her yesterday."
+
+"And therefore I will call to-day," said the Doctor, leaving the room with
+his hat on.
+
+When he was shown up into the sitting-room he found Mrs. Peacocke with a
+newspaper in her hand.  He could see at a glance that it was a copy of the
+'Broughton Gazette,' and could see also the length and outward show of the
+very article which he had been discussing with Mr. Puddicombe.  "Dr.
+Wortle," she said, "if you don't mind, I will go away from this."
+
+"But I do mind.  Why should you go away?"
+
+"They have been writing about me in the newspapers."
+
+"That was to be expected."
+
+"But they have been writing about you."
+
+"That was to have been expected also.  You don't suppose they can hurt
+me?"  This was a false boast, but in such conversations he was almost
+bound to boast.
+
+"It is I, then, am hurting you?"
+
+"You;--oh dear, no; not in the least."
+
+"But I do.  They talk of boys going away from the school."
+
+"Boys will go and boys will come, but we run on for ever," said the
+Doctor, playfully.
+
+"I can well understand that it should be so," said Mrs. Peacocke, passing
+over the Doctor's parody as though unnoticed; "and I perceive that I ought
+not to be here."
+
+"Where ought you to be, then?" said he, intending simply to carry on his
+joke.
+
+"Where indeed!  There is no where.  But wherever I may do least injury to
+innocent people,--to people who have not been driven by storms out of the
+common path of life.  For this place I am peculiarly unfit."
+
+"Will you find any place where you will be made more welcome?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"Then let me manage the rest.  You have been reading that dastardly
+article in the paper.  It will have no effect upon me.  Look here, Mrs.
+Peacocke;"--then he got up and held her hand as though he were going, but
+he remained some moments while he was still speaking to her,--still
+holding her hand;--"it was settled between your husband and me, when he
+went away, that you should remain here under my charge till his return.  I
+am bound to him to find a home for you.  I think you are as much bound to
+obey him,--which you can only do by remaining here."
+
+"I would wish to obey him, certainly."
+
+"You ought to do so,--from the peculiar circumstances more especially.
+Don't trouble your mind about the school, but do as he desired.  There is
+no question but that you must do so.  Good-bye.  Mrs. Wortle or I will
+come and see you to-morrow."  Then, and not till then, he dropped her
+hand.
+
+On the next day Mrs. Wortle did call, though these visits were to her an
+intolerable nuisance.  But it was certainly better that she should
+alternate the visits with the Doctor than that he should go every day.
+The Doctor had declared that charity required that one of them should see
+the poor woman daily.  He was quite willing that they should perform the
+task day and day about,--but should his wife omit the duty he must go in
+his wife's place.  What would all the world of Bowick say if the Doctor
+were to visit a lady, a young and a beautiful lady, every day, whereas his
+wife visited the lady not at all?  Therefore they took it turn about,
+except that sometimes the Doctor accompanied his wife.  The Doctor had
+once suggested that his wife should take the poor lady out in her
+carriage.  But against this even Mrs. Wortle had rebelled.  "Under such
+circumstances as hers she ought not to be seen driving about," said Mrs.
+Wortle.  The Doctor had submitted to this, but still thought that the
+world of Bowick was very cruel.
+
+Mrs. Wortle, though she made no complaint, thought that she was used
+cruelly in the matter.  There had been an intention of going into Brittany
+during these summer holidays.  The little tour had been almost promised.
+But the affairs of Mrs. Peacocke were of such a nature as not to allow the
+Doctor to be absent.  "You and Mary can go, and Henry will go with you."
+Henry was a bachelor brother of Mrs. Wortle, who was always very much at
+the Doctor's disposal, and at hers.  But certainly she was not going to
+quit England, not going to quit home at all, while her husband remained
+there, and while Mrs. Peacocke was an inmate of the school.  It was not
+that she was jealous.  The idea was absurd.  But she knew very well what
+Mrs. Stantiloup would say.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+'EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS.'
+
+BUT there arose a trouble greater than that occasioned by the 'Broughton
+Gazette.' There came out an article in a London weekly newspaper, called
+'Everybody's Business,' which nearly drove the Doctor mad.  This was on
+the last Saturday of the holidays.  The holidays had been commenced in the
+middle of July, and went on till the end of August.  Things had not gone
+well at Bowick during these weeks.  The parents of all the four
+newly-expected boys had--changed their minds.  One father had discovered
+that he could not afford it.  Another declared that the mother could not
+be got to part with her darling quite so soon as he had expected.  A third
+had found that a private tutor at home would best suit his purposes.
+While the fourth boldly said that he did not like to send his boy because
+of the "fuss" which had been made about Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke.  Had this
+last come alone, the Doctor would probably have resented such a
+communication; but following the others as it did, he preferred the fourth
+man to any of the other three.  "Miserable cowards," he said to himself,
+as he docketed the letters and put them away.  But the greatest blow of
+all,--of all blows of this sort,--came to him from poor Lady Anne
+Clifford.  She wrote a piteous letter to him, in which she implored him to
+allow her to take her two boys away.
+
+"My dear Doctor Wortle," she said, "so many people have been telling so
+many dreadful things about this horrible affair, that I do not dare to
+send my darling boys back to Bowick again.  Uncle Clifford and Lord Robert
+both say that I should be very wrong.  The Marchioness has said so much
+about it that I dare not go against her.  You know what my own feelings
+are about you and dear Mrs. Wortle; but I am not my own mistress.  They
+all tell me that it is my first duty to think about the dear boys'
+welfare; and of course that is true.  I hope you won't be very angry with
+me, and will write one line to say that you forgive me.--Yours most
+sincerely,
+
+"ANNE CLIFFORD."
+
+
+In answer to this the Doctor did write as follows;--
+
+
+"MY DEAR LADY ANNE,--Of course your duty is very plain,--to do what you
+think best for the boys; and it is natural enough that you should follow
+the advice of your relatives and theirs.--Faithfully yours,
+
+"JEFFREY WORTLE."
+
+
+He could not bring himself to write in a more friendly tone, or to tell
+her that he forgave her.  His sympathies were not with her.  His
+sympathies at the present moment were only with Mrs. Peacocke.  But then
+Lady Anne Clifford was not a beautiful woman, as was Mrs. Peacocke.
+
+This was a great blow.  Two other boys had also been summoned away, making
+five in all, whose premature departure was owing altogether to the
+virulent tongue of that wretched old Mother Shipton.  And there had been
+four who were to come in the place of four others, who, in the course of
+nature, were going to carry on their more advanced studies elsewhere.
+Vacancies such as these had always been pre-occupied long beforehand by
+ambitious parents.  These very four places had been pre-occupied, but now
+they were all vacant.  There would be nine empty beds in the school when
+it met again after the holidays; and the Doctor well understood that nine
+beds remaining empty would soon cause others to be emptied.  It is success
+that creates success, and decay that produces decay.  Gradual decay he
+knew that he could not endure.  He must shut up his school,--give up his
+employment,--and retire altogether from the activity of life.  He felt
+that if it came to this with him he must in very truth turn his face to
+the wall and die.  Would it,--would it really come to that, that Mrs.
+Stantiloup should have altogether conquered him in the combat that had
+sprung up between them?
+
+But yet he would not give up Mrs. Peacocke.  Indeed, circumstanced as he
+was, he could not give her up.  He had promised not only her, but her
+absent husband, that until his return there should be a home for her in
+the school-house.  There would be a cowardice in going back from his word
+which was altogether foreign to his nature.  He could not bring himself to
+retire from the fight, even though by doing so he might save himself from
+the actual final slaughter which seemed to be imminent.  He thought only
+of making fresh attacks upon his enemy, instead of meditating flight from
+those which were made upon him.  As a dog, when another dog has got him
+well by the ear, thinks not at all of his own wound, but only how he may
+catch his enemy by the lip, so was the Doctor in regard to Mrs.
+Stantiloup.  When the two Clifford boys were taken away, he took some joy
+to himself in remembering that Mr. Stantiloup could not pay his butcher's
+bill.
+
+Then, just at the end of the holidays, some good-natured friend sent to
+him a copy of 'Everybody's Business.' There is no duty which a man owes to
+himself more clearly than that of throwing into the waste-paper basket,
+unsearched and even unopened, all newspapers sent to him without a
+previously-declared purpose.  The sender has either written something
+himself which he wishes to force you to read, or else he has been desirous
+of wounding you by some ill-natured criticism upon yourself.  'Everybody's
+Business' was a paper which, in the natural course of things, did not find
+its way into the Bowick Rectory; and the Doctor, though he was no doubt
+acquainted with the title, had never even looked at its columns.  It was
+the purpose of the periodical to amuse its readers, as its name declared,
+with the private affairs of their neighbours.  It went boldly about its
+work, excusing itself by the assertion that Jones was just as well
+inclined to be talked about as Smith was to hear whatever could be said
+about Jones.  As both parties were served, what could be the objection?
+It was in the main good-natured, and probably did most frequently gratify
+the Joneses, while it afforded considerable amusement to the listless and
+numerous Smiths of the world.  If you can't read and understand Jones's
+speech in Parliament, you may at any rate have mind enough to interest
+yourself with the fact that he never composed a word of it in his own room
+without a ring on his finger and a flower in his button-hole.  It may also
+be agreeable to know that Walker the poet always takes a mutton-chop and
+two glasses of sherry at half-past one.  'Everybody's Business' did this
+for everybody to whom such excitement was agreeable.  But in managing
+everybody's business in that fashion, let a writer be as good-natured as
+he may and let the principle be ever so well-founded that nobody is to be
+hurt, still there are dangers.  It is not always easy to know what will
+hurt and what will not.  And then sometimes there will come a temptation
+to be, not spiteful, but specially amusing.  There must be danger, and a
+writer will sometimes be indiscreet.  Personalities will lead to libels
+even when the libeller has been most innocent.  It may be that after all
+the poor poet never drank a glass of sherry before dinner in his life,--it
+may be that a little toast-and-water, even with his dinner, gives him all
+the refreshment that he wants, and that two glasses of alcoholic mixture
+in the middle of the day shall seem, when imputed to him, to convey a
+charge of downright inebriety.  But the writer has perhaps learned to
+regard two glasses of meridian wine as but a moderate amount of
+sustentation.  This man is much flattered if it be given to be understood
+of him that he falls in love with every pretty woman that he
+sees;--whereas another will think that he has been made subject to a foul
+calumny by such insinuation.
+
+'Everybody's Business' fell into some such mistake as this, in that very
+amusing article which was written for the delectation of its readers in
+reference to Dr. Wortle and Mrs. Peacocke.  The 'Broughton Gazette' no
+doubt confined itself to the clerical and highly moral views of the case,
+and, having dealt with the subject chiefly on behalf of the Close and the
+admirers of the Close, had made no allusion to the fact that Mrs. Peacocke
+was a very pretty woman.  One or two other local papers had been more
+scurrilous, and had, with ambiguous and timid words, alluded to the
+Doctor's personal admiration for the lady.  These, or the rumours created
+by them, had reached one of the funniest and lightest-handed of the
+contributors to 'Everybody's Business,' and he had concocted an amusing
+article,--which he had not intended to be at all libellous, which he had
+thought to be only funny.  He had not appreciated, probably, the tragedy
+of the lady's position, or the sanctity of that of the gentleman.  There
+was comedy in the idea of the Doctor having sent one husband away to
+America to look after the other while he consoled the wife in England.
+"It must be admitted," said the writer, "that the Doctor has the best of
+it.  While one gentleman is gouging the other,--as cannot but be
+expected,--the Doctor will be at any rate in security, enjoying the smiles
+of beauty under his own fig-tree at Bowick.  After a hot morning with
+'_tupto_' in the school, there will be 'amo' in the cool of the evening."
+And this was absolutely sent to him by some good-natured friend!
+
+The funny writer obtained a popularity wider probably than he had
+expected.  His words reached Mrs. Stantiloup, as well as the Doctor, and
+were read even in the Bishop's palace.  They were quoted even in the
+'Broughton Gazette,' not with approbation, but in a high tone of moral
+severity.  "See the nature of the language to which Dr. Wortle's conduct
+has subjected the whole of the diocese!"  That was the tone of the
+criticism made by the 'Broughton Gazette' on the article in 'Everybody's
+Business.' "What else has he a right to expect?" said Mrs. Stantiloup to
+Mrs. Rolland, having made quite a journey into Broughton for the sake of
+discussing it at the palace.  There she explained it all to Mrs. Rolland,
+having herself studied the passage so as fully to appreciate the virus
+contained in it.  "He passes all the morning in the school whipping the
+boys himself because he has sent Mr. Peacocke away, and then amuses
+himself in the evening by making love to Mr. Peacocke's wife, as he calls
+her."  Dr. Wortle, when he read and re-read the article, and when the jokes
+which were made upon it reached his ears, as they were sure to do, was
+nearly maddened by what he called the heartless iniquity of the world; but
+his state became still worse when he received an affectionate but solemn
+letter from the Bishop warning him of his danger.  An affectionate letter
+from a bishop must surely be the most disagreeable missive which a parish
+clergyman can receive.  Affection from one man to another is not natural
+in letters.  A bishop never writes affectionately unless he means to
+reprove severely.  When he calls a clergyman his "dear brother in Christ,"
+he is sure to go on to show that the man so called is altogether unworthy
+of the name.  So it was with a letter now received at Bowick, in which the
+Bishop expressed his opinion that Dr. Wortle ought not to pay any further
+visits to Mrs. Peacocke till she should have settled herself down with one
+legitimate husband, let that legitimate husband be who it might.  The
+Bishop did not indeed, at first, make reference by name to 'Everybody's
+Business,' but he stated that the "metropolitan press" had taken up the
+matter, and that scandal would take place in the diocese if further cause
+were given.  "It is not enough to be innocent," said the Bishop, "but men
+must know that we are so."
+
+Then there came a sharp and pressing correspondence between the Bishop and
+the Doctor, which lasted four or five days.  The Doctor, without referring
+to any other portion of the Bishop's letter, demanded to know to what
+"metropolitan newspaper" the Bishop had alluded, as, if any such paper had
+spread scandalous imputations as to him, the Doctor, respecting the lady
+in question, it would be his, the Doctor's, duty to proceed against that
+newspaper for libel.  In answer to this the Bishop, in a note much shorter
+and much less affectionate than his former letter, said that he did not
+wish to name any metropolitan newspaper.  But the Doctor would not, of
+course, put up with such an answer as this.  He wrote very solemnly now,
+if not affectionately.  "His lordship had spoken of 'scandal in the
+diocese.' The words," said the Doctor, "contained a most grave charge.  He
+did not mean to say that any such accusation had been made by the Bishop
+himself; but such accusation must have been made by some one at least of
+the London newspapers or the Bishop would not have been justified in what
+he has written.  Under such circumstances he, Dr. Wortle, thought himself
+entitled to demand from the Bishop the name of the newspaper in question,
+and the date on which the article had appeared."
+
+In answer to this there came no written reply, but a copy of the
+'Everybody's Business' which the Doctor had already seen.  He had, no
+doubt, known from the first that it was the funny paragraph about
+'_tupto_' and "amo" to which the Bishop had referred.  But in the serious
+steps which he now intended to take, he was determined to have positive
+proof from the hands of the Bishop himself.  The Bishop had not directed
+the pernicious newspaper with his own hands, but if called upon, could not
+deny that it had been sent from the palace by his orders.  Having received
+it, the Doctor wrote back at once as follows;--
+
+
+"RIGHT REVEREND AND DEAR LORD,--Any word coming from your lordship to me
+is of grave importance, as should, I think, be all words coming from a
+bishop to his clergy; and they are of special importance when containing a
+reproof, whether deserved or undeserved.  The scurrilous and vulgar attack
+made upon me in the newspaper which your lordship has sent to me would not
+have been worthy of my serious notice had it not been made worthy by your
+lordship as being the ground on which such a letter was written to me as
+that of your lordship's of the 12th instant.  Now it has been invested
+with so much solemnity by your lordship's notice of it that I feel myself
+obliged to defend myself against it by public action.
+
+"If I have given just cause of scandal to the diocese I will retire both
+from my living and from my school.  But before doing so I will endeavour
+to prove that I have done neither.  This I can only do by publishing in a
+court of law all the circumstances in reference to my connection with Mr.
+and Mrs. Peacocke.  As regards myself, this, though necessary, will be
+very painful.  As regards them, I am inclined to think that the more the
+truth is known, the more general and the more generous will be the
+sympathy felt for their position.
+
+"As the newspaper sent to me, no doubt by your lordship's orders, from the
+palace, has been accompanied by no letter, it may be necessary that your
+lordship should be troubled by a subpoena, so as to prove that the
+newspaper alluded to by your lordship is the one against which my
+proceedings will be taken.  It will be necessary, of course, that I should
+show that the libel in question has been deemed important enough to bring
+down upon me ecclesiastical rebuke of such a nature as to make my
+remaining in the diocese unbearable,--unless it is shown that that rebuke
+was undeserved."
+
+
+There was consternation in the palace when this was received.  So
+stiffnecked a man, so obstinate, so unclerical,--so determined to make
+much of little!  The Bishop had felt himself bound to warn a clergyman
+that, for the sake of the Church, he could not do altogether as other men
+might.  No doubt certain ladies had got around him,--especially Lady
+Margaret Momson,--filling his ears with the horrors of the Doctor's
+proceedings.  The gentleman who had written the article about the Greek
+and the Latin words had seen the truth of the thing at once,--so said Lady
+Margaret.  The Doctor had condoned the offence committed by the Peacockes
+because the woman had been beautiful, and was repaying himself for his
+mercy by basking in her loveliness.  There was no saying that there was
+not some truth in this?  Mrs. Wortle herself entertained a feeling of the
+same kind.  It was palpable, on the face of it, to all except Dr. Wortle
+himself,--and to Mrs. Peacocke.  Mrs. Stantiloup, who had made her way
+into the palace, was quite convincing on this point.  Everybody knew, she
+said, that the Doctor went across, and saw the lady all alone, every day.
+Everybody did not know that.  If everybody had been accurate, everybody
+would have asserted that he did this thing every other day.  But the
+matter, as it was represented to the Bishop by the ladies, with the
+assistance of one or two clergymen in the Close, certainly seemed to
+justify his lordship's interference.
+
+But this that was threatened was very terrible.  There was a determination
+about the Doctor which made it clear to the Bishop that he would be as bad
+as he said.  When he, the Bishop, had spoken of scandal, of course he had
+not intended to say that the Doctor's conduct was scandalous; nor had he
+said anything of the kind.  He had used the word in its proper sense,--and
+had declared that offence would be created in the minds of people unless
+an injurious report were stopped.  "It is not enough to be innocent," he
+had said, "but men must know that we are so."  He had declared in that his
+belief in Dr. Wortle's innocence.  But yet there might, no doubt, be an
+action for libel against the newspaper.  And when damages came to be
+considered, much weight would be placed naturally on the attention which
+the Bishop had paid to the article.  The result of this was that the
+Bishop invited the Doctor to come and spend a night with him in the
+palace.
+
+The Doctor went, reaching the palace only just before dinner.  During
+dinner and in the drawing-room Dr. Wortle made himself very pleasant.  He
+was a man who could always be soft and gentle in a drawing-room.  To see
+him talking with Mrs. Rolland and the Bishop's daughters, you would not
+have thought that there was anything wrong with him.  The discussion with
+the Bishop came after that, and lasted till midnight.  "It will be for the
+disadvantage of the diocese that this matter should be dragged into
+Court,--and for the disadvantage of the Church in general that a clergyman
+should seem to seek such redress against his bishop."  So said the Bishop.
+
+But the Doctor was obdurate.  "I seek no redress," he said, "against my
+bishop.  I seek redress against a newspaper which has calumniated me.  It
+is your good opinion, my lord,--your good opinion or your ill opinion
+which is the breath of my nostrils.  I have to refer to you in order that
+I may show that this paper, which I should otherwise have despised, has
+been strong enough to influence that opinion."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"'AMO' IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING."
+
+THE Doctor went up to London, and was told by his lawyers that an action
+for damages probably would lie.  "'Amo' in the cool of the evening,"
+certainly meant making love.  There could be no doubt that allusion was
+made to Mrs. Peacocke.  To accuse a clergyman of a parish, and a
+schoolmaster, of making love to a lady so circumstanced as Mrs. Peacocke,
+no doubt was libellous.  Presuming that the libel could not be justified,
+he would probably succeed.  "Justified!" said the Doctor, almost
+shrieking, to his lawyers; "I never said a word to the lady in my life
+except in pure kindness and charity.  Every word might have been heard by
+all the world."  Nevertheless, had all the world been present, he would
+not have held her hand so tenderly or so long as he had done on a certain
+occasion which has been mentioned.
+
+"They will probably apologise," said the lawyer.
+
+"Shall I be bound to accept their apology?"
+
+"No; not bound; but you would have to show, if you went on with the
+action, that the damage complained of was of so grievous a nature that the
+apology would not salve it."
+
+"The damage has been already done," said the Doctor, eagerly.  "I have
+received the Bishop's rebuke,--a rebuke in which he has said that I have
+brought scandal upon the diocese."
+
+"Rebukes break no bones," said the lawyer.  "Can you show that it will
+serve to prevent boys from coming to your school?"
+
+"It may not improbably force me to give up the living.  I certainly will
+not remain there subject to the censure of the Bishop.  I do not in truth
+want any damages.  I would not accept money.  I only want to set myself
+right before the world."  It was then agreed that the necessary
+communication should be made by the lawyer to the newspaper proprietors,
+so as to put the matter in a proper train for the action.
+
+After this the Doctor returned home, just in time to open his school with
+his diminished forces.  At the last moment there was another defaulter, so
+that there were now no more than twenty pupils.  The school had not been
+so low as this for the last fifteen years.  There had never been less than
+eight-and-twenty before, since Mrs. Stantiloup had first begun her
+campaign.  It was heartbreaking to him.  He felt as though he were almost
+ashamed to go into his own school.  In directing his housekeeper to send
+the diminished orders to the tradesmen he was thoroughly ashamed of
+himself; in giving his directions to the usher as to the re-divided
+classes he was thoroughly ashamed of himself.  He wished that there was no
+school, and would have been contented now to give it all up, and to
+confine Mary's fortune to L10,000 instead of L20,000, had it not been that
+he could not bear to confess that he was beaten.  The boys themselves
+seemed almost to carry their tails between their legs, as though even they
+were ashamed of their own school.  If, as was too probable, another
+half-dozen should go at Christmas, then the thing must be abandoned.  And
+how could he go on as rector of the parish with the abominable empty
+building staring him in the face every moment of his life.
+
+"I hope you are not really going to law," said his wife to him.
+
+"I must, my dear.  I have no other way of defending my honour."
+
+"Go to law with the Bishop?"
+
+"No, not with the Bishop."
+
+"But the Bishop would be brought into it?"
+
+"Yes; he will certainly be brought into it."
+
+"And as an enemy.  What I mean is, that he will be brought in very much
+against his own will."
+
+"Not a doubt about it," said the Doctor.  "But he will have brought it
+altogether upon himself.  How he can have condescended to send that
+scurrilous newspaper is more than I can understand.  That one gentleman
+should have so treated another is to me incomprehensible.  But that a
+bishop should have done so to a clergyman of his own diocese shakes all my
+old convictions.  There is a vulgarity about it, a meanness of thinking,
+an aptitude to suspect all manner of evil, which I cannot fathom.  What!
+did he really think that I was making love to the woman; did he doubt that
+I was treating her and her husband with kindness, as one human being is
+bound to treat another in affliction; did he believe, in his heart, that I
+sent the man away in order that I might have an opportunity for a wicked
+purpose of my own?  It is impossible.  When I think of myself and of him,
+I cannot believe it.  That woman who has succeeded at last in stirring up
+all this evil against me,--even she could not believe it.  Her malice is
+sufficient to make her conduct intelligible;--but there is no malice in
+the Bishop's mind against me.  He would infinitely sooner live with me on
+pleasant terms if he could justify his doing so to his conscience.  He has
+been stirred to do this in the execution of some presumed duty.  I do not
+accuse him of malice.  But I do accuse him of a meanness of intellect
+lower than what I could have presumed to have been possible in a man so
+placed.  I never thought him clever; I never thought him great; I never
+thought him even to be a gentleman, in the fullest sense of the word; but
+I did think he was a man.  This is the performance of a creature not
+worthy to be called so."
+
+"Oh, Jeffrey, he did not believe all that."
+
+"What did he believe?  When he read that article, did he see in it a true
+rebuke against a hypocrite, or did he see in it a scurrilous attack upon a
+brother clergyman, a neighbour, and a friend?  If the latter, he certainly
+would not have been instigated by it to write to me such a letter as he
+did.  He certainly would not have sent the paper to me had he felt it to
+contain a foul-mouthed calumny."
+
+"He wanted you to know what people of that sort were saying."
+
+"Yes; he wanted me to know that, and he wanted me to know also that the
+knowledge had come to me from my bishop.  I should have thought evil of
+any one who had sent me the vile ribaldry.  But coming from him, it fills
+me with despair."
+
+"Despair!" she said, repeating his word.
+
+"Yes; despair as to the condition of the Church when I see a man capable
+of such meanness holding so high place.  '"Amo" in the cool of the
+evening!' That words such as those should have been sent to me by the
+Bishop, as showing what the 'metropolitan press' of the day was saying
+about my conduct!  Of course, my action will be against him,--against the
+Bishop.  I shall be bound to expose his conduct.  What else can I do?
+There are things which a man cannot bear and live.  Were I to put up with
+this I must leave the school, leave the parish;--nay, leave the country.
+There is a stain upon me which I must wash out, or I cannot remain here."
+
+"No, no, no," said his wife, embracing him.
+
+"'"Amo" in the cool of the evening!' And that when, as God is my judge
+above me, I have done my best to relieve what has seemed to me the
+unmerited sorrows of two poor sufferers!  Had it come from Mrs.
+Stantiloup, it would, of course, have been nothing.  I could have
+understood that her malice should have condescended to anything, however
+low.  But from the Bishop!"
+
+"How will you be the worse?  Who will know?"
+
+"I know it," said he, striking his breast.  "I know it.  The wound is
+here.  Do you think that when a coarse libel is welcomed in the Bishop's
+palace, and treated there as true, that it will not be spread abroad among
+other houses?  When the Bishop has thought it necessary to send it me,
+what will other people do,--others who are not bound to be just and
+righteous in their dealings with me as he is?  '"Amo" in the cool of the
+evening!'"  Then he seized his hat and rushed out into the garden.
+
+The gentleman who had written the paragraph certainly had had no idea that
+his words would have been thus effectual.  The little joke had seemed to
+him to be good enough to fill a paragraph, and it had gone from him
+without further thought.  Of the Doctor or of the lady he had conceived no
+idea whatsoever.  Somebody else had said somewhere that a clergyman had
+sent a lady's reputed husband away to look for another husband, while he
+and the lady remained together.  The joke had not been much of a joke, but
+it had been enough.  It had gone forth, and had now brought the whole
+palace of Broughton into grief, and had nearly driven our excellent Doctor
+mad!  "'Amo' in the cool of the evening!"  The words stuck to him like the
+shirt of Nessus, lacerating his very spirit.  That words such as those
+should have been sent to him in a solemn sober spirit by the bishop of his
+diocese!  It never occurred to him that he had, in truth, been imprudent
+when paying his visits alone to Mrs. Peacocke.
+
+It was late in the evening, and he wandered away up through the green
+rides of a wood the borders of which came down to the glebe fields.  He
+had been boiling over with indignation while talking to his wife.  But as
+soon as he was alone he endeavoured,--purposely endeavoured to rid himself
+for a while of his wrath.  This matter was so important to him that he
+knew well that it behoved him to look at it all round in a spirit other
+than that of anger.  He had talked of giving up his school, and giving up
+his parish, and had really for a time almost persuaded himself that he
+must do so unless he could induce the Bishop publicly to withdraw the
+censure which he felt to have been expressed against him.
+
+And then what would his life be afterwards?  His parish and his school had
+not been only sources of income to him.  The duty also had been dear, and
+had been performed on the whole with conscientious energy.  Was everything
+to be thrown up, and his whole life hereafter be made a blank to him,
+because the Bishop had been unjust and injudicious?  He could see that it
+well might be so, if he were to carry this contest on.  He knew his own
+temper well enough to be sure that, as he fought, he would grow hotter in
+the fight, and that when he was once in the midst of it nothing would be
+possible to him but absolute triumph or absolute annihilation.  If once he
+should succeed in getting the Bishop into court as a witness, either the
+Bishop must be crushed or he himself.  The Bishop must be got to say why
+he had sent that low ribaldry to a clergyman in his parish.  He must be
+asked whether he had himself believed it, or whether he had not believed
+it.  He must be made to say that there existed no slightest reason for
+believing the insinuation contained; and then, having confessed so much,
+he must be asked why he had sent that letter to Bowick parsonage.  If it
+were false as well as ribald, slanderous as well as vulgar, malicious as
+well as mean, was the sending of it a mode of communication between a
+bishop and a clergyman of which he as a bishop could approve?  Questions
+such as these must be asked him; and the Doctor, as he walked alone,
+arranging these questions within his own bosom, putting them into the
+strongest language which he could find, almost assured himself that the
+Bishop would be crushed in answering them.  The Bishop had made a great
+mistake.  So the Doctor assured himself.  He had been entrapped by bad
+advisers, and had fallen into a pit.  He had gone wrong, and had lost
+himself.  When cross-questioned, as the Doctor suggested to himself that
+he should be cross-questioned, the Bishop would have to own all this;--and
+then he would be crushed.
+
+But did he really want to crush the Bishop?  Had this man been so bitter
+an enemy to him that, having him on the hip, he wanted to strike him down
+altogether?  In describing the man's character to his wife, as he had done
+in the fury of his indignation, he had acquitted the man of malice.  He
+was sure now, in his calmer moments, that the man had not intended to do
+him harm.  If it were left in the Bishop's bosom, his parish, his school,
+and his character would all be made safe to him.  He was sure of that.
+There was none of the spirit of Mrs. Stantiloup in the feeling that had
+prevailed at the palace.  The Bishop, who had never yet been able to be
+masterful over him, had desired in a mild way to become masterful.  He had
+liked the opportunity of writing that affectionate letter.  That reference
+to the "metropolitan press" had slipt from him unawares; and then, when
+badgered for his authority, when driven to give an instance from the
+London newspapers, he had sent the objectionable periodical.  He had, in
+point of fact, made a mistake;--a stupid, foolish mistake, into which a
+really well-bred man would hardly have fallen.  "Ought I to take advantage
+of it?" said the Doctor to himself when he had wandered for an hour or
+more alone through the wood.  He certainly did not wish to be crushed
+himself.  Ought he to be anxious to crush the Bishop because of this
+error?
+
+"As for the paper," he said to himself, walking quicker as his mind turned
+to this side of the subject,--"as for the paper itself, it is beneath my
+notice.  What is it to me what such a publication, or even the readers of
+it, may think of me?  As for damages, I would rather starve than soil my
+hands with their money.  Though it should succeed in ruining me, I could
+not accept redress in that shape."  And thus having thought the matter
+fully over, he returned home, still wrathful, but with mitigated wrath.
+
+A Saturday was fixed on which he should again go up to London to see the
+lawyer.  He was obliged now to be particular about his days, as, in the
+absence of Mr. Peacocke, the school required his time.  Saturday was a
+half-holiday, and on that day he could be absent on condition of remitting
+the classical lessons in the morning.  As he thought of it all he began to
+be almost tired of Mr. Peacocke.  Nevertheless, on the Saturday morning,
+before he started, he called on Mrs. Peacocke,--in company with his
+wife,--and treated her with all his usual cordial kindness.  "Mrs.
+Wortle," he said, "is going up to town with me; but we shall be home
+to-night, and we will see you on Monday if not to-morrow."  Mrs. Wortle was
+going with him, not with the view of being present at his interview with
+the lawyer, which she knew would not be allowed, but on the pretext of
+shopping.  Her real reason for making the request to be taken up to town
+was, that she might use the last moment possible in mitigating her
+husband's wrath against the Bishop.
+
+"I have seen one of the proprietors and the editor," said the lawyer, "and
+they are quite willing to apologise.  I really do believe they are very
+sorry.  The words had been allowed to pass without being weighed.  Nothing
+beyond an innocent joke was intended."
+
+"I dare say.  It seems innocent enough to them.  If soot be thrown at a
+chimney-sweeper the joke is innocent, but very offensive when it is thrown
+at you."
+
+"They are quite aware that you have ground to complain.  Of course you can
+go on if you like.  The fact that they have offered to apologise will no
+doubt be a point in their favour.  Nevertheless you would probably get a
+verdict."
+
+"We could bring the Bishop into court?"
+
+"I think so.  You have got his letter speaking of the 'metropolitan
+press'?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"It is for you to think, Dr. Wortle, whether there would not be a feeling
+against you among clergymen."
+
+"Of course there will.  Men in authority always have public sympathy with
+them in this country.  No man more rejoices that it should be so than I
+do.  But not the less is it necessary that now and again a man shall make
+a stand in his own defence.  He should never have sent me that paper."
+
+"Here," said the lawyer, "is the apology they propose to insert if you
+approve of it.  They will also pay my bill,--which, however, will not, I
+am sorry to say, be very heavy."  Then the lawyer handed to the Doctor a
+slip of paper, on which the following words were written;--
+
+"Our attention has been called to a notice which was made in our
+impression of the -- ultimo on the conduct of a clergyman in the diocese
+of Broughton.  A joke was perpetrated which, we are sorry to find, has
+given offence where certainly no offence was intended.  We have since
+heard all the details of the case to which reference was made, and are
+able to say that the conduct of the clergyman in question has deserved
+neither censure nor ridicule.  Actuated by the purest charity he has
+proved himself a sincere friend to persons in great trouble."
+
+"They'll put in your name if you wish it," said the lawyer, "or alter it
+in any way you like, so that they be not made to eat too much dirt."
+
+"I do not want them to alter it," said the Doctor, sitting thoughtfully.
+"Their eating dirt will do no good to me.  They are nothing to me.  It is
+the Bishop."  Then, as though he were not thinking of what he did, he tore
+the paper and threw the fragments down on the floor.  "They are nothing to
+me."
+
+"You will not accept their apology?" said the lawyer.
+
+"Oh yes;--or rather, it is unnecessary.  You may tell them that I have
+changed my mind, and that I will ask for no apology.  As far as the paper
+is concerned, it will be better to let the thing die a natural death.  I
+should never have troubled myself about the newspaper if the Bishop had
+not sent it to me.  Indeed I had seen it before the Bishop sent it, and
+thought little or nothing of it.  Animals will after their kind.  The wasp
+stings, and the polecat stinks, and the lion tears its prey asunder.  Such
+a paper as that of course follows its own bent.  One would have thought
+that a bishop would have done the same."
+
+"I may tell them that the action is withdrawn."
+
+"Certainly; certainly.  Tell them also that they will oblige me by putting
+in no apology.  And as for your bill, I would prefer to pay it myself.  I
+will exercise no anger against them.  It is not they who in truth have
+injured me."  As he returned home he was not altogether happy, feeling that
+the Bishop would escape him; but he made his wife happy by telling her the
+decision to which he had come.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"IT IS IMPOSSIBLE."
+
+THE absence of Dr. and Mrs. Wortle was peculiarly unfortunate on that
+afternoon, as a visitor rode over from a distance to make a call,--a
+visitor whom they both would have been very glad to welcome, but of whose
+coming Mrs. Wortle was not so delighted to hear when she was told by Mary
+that he had spent two or three hours at the Rectory.  Mrs. Wortle began to
+think whether the visitor could have known of her intended absence and the
+Doctor's.  That Mary had not known that the visitor was coming she was
+quite certain.  Indeed she did not really suspect the visitor, who was one
+too ingenuous in his nature to preconcert so subtle and so wicked a
+scheme.  The visitor, of course, had been Lord Carstairs.
+
+"Was he here long?" asked Mrs. Wortle anxiously.
+
+"Two or three hours, mamma.  He rode over from Buttercup where he is
+staying, for a cricket match, and of course I got him some lunch."
+
+"I should hope so," said the Doctor.  "But I didn't think that Carstairs
+was so fond of the Momson lot as all that."
+
+Mrs. Wortle at once doubted the declared purpose of this visit to
+Buttercup.  Buttercup was more than half-way between Carstairs and Bowick.
+
+"And then we had a game of lawn-tennis.  Talbot and Monk came through to
+make up sides."  So much Mary told at once, but she did not tell more
+till she was alone with her mother.
+
+Young Carstairs had certainly not come over on the sly, as we may call it,
+but nevertheless there had been a project in his mind, and fortune had
+favoured him.  He was now about nineteen, and had been treated for the
+last twelve months almost as though he had been a man.  It had seemed to
+him that there was no possible reason why he should not fall in love as
+well as another.  Nothing more sweet, nothing more lovely, nothing more
+lovable than Mary Wortle had he ever seen.  He had almost made up his mind
+to speak on two or three occasions before he left Bowick; but either his
+courage or the occasion had failed him.  Once, as he was walking home with
+her from church, he had said one word;--but it had amounted to nothing.
+She had escaped from him before she was bound to understand what he meant.
+He did not for a moment suppose that she had understood anything.  He was
+only too much afraid that she regarded him as a mere boy.  But when he had
+been away from Bowick two months he resolved that he would not be regarded
+as a mere boy any longer.  Therefore he took an opportunity of going to
+Buttercup, which he certainly would not have done for the sake of the
+Momsons or for the sake of the cricket.
+
+He ate his lunch before he said a word, and then, with but poor grace,
+submitted to the lawn-tennis with Talbot and Monk.  Even to his youthful
+mind it seemed that Talbot and Monk were brought in on purpose.  They were
+both of them boys he had liked, but he hated them now.  However, he played
+his game, and when that was over, managed to get rid of them, sending them
+back through the gate to the school-ground.
+
+"I think I must say good-bye now," said Mary, "because there are ever so
+many things in the house which I have got to do."
+
+"I am going almost immediately," said the young lord.
+
+"Papa will be so sorry not to have seen you."  This had been said once or
+twice before.
+
+"I came over," he said, "on purpose to see you."
+
+They were now standing on the middle of the lawn, and Mary had assumed a
+look which intended to signify that she expected him to go.  He knew the
+place well enough to get his own horse, or to order the groom to get it
+for him.  But instead of that, he stood his ground, and now declared his
+purpose.
+
+"To see me, Lord Carstairs!"
+
+"Yes, Miss Wortle.  And if the Doctor had been here, or your mother, I
+should have told them."
+
+"Have told them what?" she asked.  She knew; she felt sure that she knew;
+and yet she could not refrain from the question.
+
+"I have come here to ask if you can love me."
+
+It was a most decided way of declaring his purpose, and one which made
+Mary feel that a great difficulty was at once thrown upon her.  She really
+did not know whether she could love him or not.  Why shouldn't she have
+been able to love him?  Was it not natural enough that she should be able?
+But she knew that she ought not to love him, whether able or not.  There
+were various reasons which were apparent enough to her though it might be
+very difficult to make him see them.  He was little more than a boy, and
+had not yet finished his education.  His father and mother would not
+expect him to fall in love, at any rate till he had taken his degree.  And
+they certainly would not expect him to fall in love with the daughter of
+his tutor.  She had an idea that, circumstanced as she was, she was bound
+by loyalty both to her own father and to the lad's father not to be able
+to love him.  She thought that she would find it easy enough to say that
+she did not love him; but that was not the question.  As for being able to
+love him,--she could not answer that at all.
+
+"Lord Carstairs," she said, severely, "you ought not to have come here
+when papa and mamma are away."
+
+"I didn't know they were away.  I expected to find them here."
+
+"But they ain't.  And you ought to go away."
+
+"Is that all you can say to me?"
+
+"I think it is.  You know you oughtn't to talk to me like that.  Your own
+papa and mamma would be angry if they knew it."
+
+"Why should they be angry?  Do you think that I shall not tell them?"
+
+"I am sure they would disapprove it altogether," said Mary.  "In fact it
+is all nonsense, and you really must go away."
+
+Then she made a decided attempt to enter the house by the drawing-room
+window, which opened out on a gravel terrace.
+
+But he stopped her, standing boldly by the window.  "I think you ought to
+give me an answer, Mary," he said.
+
+"I have; and I cannot say anything more.  You must let me go in."
+
+"If they say that it's all right at Carstairs, then will you love me?"
+
+"They won't say that it's all right; and papa won't think that it's right.
+It's very wrong.  You haven't been to Oxford yet, and you'll have to
+remain there for three years.  I think it's very ill-natured of you to
+come and talk to me like this.  Of course it means nothing.  You are only
+a boy, but yet you ought to know better."
+
+"It does mean something.  It means a great deal.  As for being a boy, I am
+older than you are, and have quite as much right to know my own mind."
+
+Hereupon she took advantage of some little movement in his position, and,
+tripping by him hastily, made good her escape into the house.  Young
+Carstairs, perceiving that his occasion for the present was over, went
+into the yard and got upon his horse.  He was by no means contented with
+what he had done, but still he thought that he must have made her
+understand his purpose.
+
+Mary, when she found herself safe within her own room, could not refrain
+from asking herself the question which her lover had asked her.  "Could
+she love him?"  She didn't see any reason why she couldn't love him.  It
+would be very nice, she thought, to love him.  He was sweet-tempered,
+handsome, bright, and thoroughly good-humoured; and then his position in
+the world was very high.  Not for a moment did she tell herself that she
+would love him.  She did not understand all the differences in the world's
+ranks quite as well as did her father, but still she felt that because of
+his rank,--because of his rank and his youth combined,--she ought not to
+allow herself to love him.  There was no reason why the son of a peer
+should not marry the daughter of a clergyman.  The peer and the clergyman
+might be equally gentlemen.  But young Carstairs had been there in trust.
+Lord Bracy had sent him there to be taught Latin and Greek, and had a
+right to expect that he should not be encouraged to fall in love with his
+tutor's daughter.  It was not that she did not think herself good enough
+to be loved by any young lord, but that she was too good to bring trouble
+on the people who had trusted her father.  Her father would despise her
+were he to hear that she had encouraged the lad, or as some might say, had
+entangled him.  She did not know whether she should not have spoken to
+Lord Carstairs more decidedly.  But she could, at any rate, comfort
+herself with the assurance that she had given him no encouragement.  Of
+course she must tell it all to her mother, but in doing so could declare
+positively that she had given the young man no encouragement.
+
+"It was very unfortunate that Lord Carstairs should have come just when I
+was away," said Mrs. Wortle to her daughter as soon as they were alone
+together.
+
+"Yes, mamma; it was."
+
+"And so odd.  I haven't been away from home any day all the summer
+before."
+
+"He expected to find you."
+
+"Of course he did.  Had he anything particular to say!"
+
+"Yes, mamma."
+
+"He had?  What was it, my dear?"
+
+"I was very much surprised, mamma, but I couldn't help it.  He asked
+me----"
+
+"Asked you what, Mary?"
+
+"Oh, mamma!"  Here she knelt down and hid her face in her mother's lap.
+
+"Oh, my dear, this is very bad;--very bad indeed."
+
+"It needn't be bad for you, mamma; or for papa."
+
+"Is it bad for you, my child?"
+
+"No, mamma; except of course that I am sorry that it should be so."
+
+"What did you say to him?"
+
+"Of course I told him that it was impossible.  He is only a boy, and I
+told him so."
+
+"You made him no promise."
+
+"No, mamma; no!  A promise!  Oh dear no!  Of course it is impossible.  I
+knew that.  I never dreamed of anything of the kind; but he said it all
+there out on the lawn."
+
+"Had he come on purpose?"
+
+"Yes;--so he said.  I think he had.  But he will go to Oxford, and will of
+course forget it."
+
+"He is such a nice boy," said Mrs. Wortle, who, in all her anxiety, could
+not but like the lad the better for having fallen in love with her
+daughter.
+
+"Yes, mamma; he is.  I always liked him.  But this is quite out of the
+question.  What would his papa and mamma say?"
+
+"It would be very dreadful to have a quarrel, wouldn't it,--and just at
+present, when there are so many things to trouble your papa."  Though Mrs.
+Wortle was quite honest and true in the feeling she had expressed as to
+the young lord's visit, yet she was alive to the glory of having a young
+lord for her son-in-law.
+
+"Of course it is out of the question, mamma.  It has never occurred to me
+for a moment as otherwise.  He has got to go to Oxford and take his degree
+before he thinks of such a thing.  I shall be quite an old woman by that
+time, and he will have forgotten me.  You may be sure, mamma, that
+whatever I did say to him was quite plain.  I wish you could have been
+here and heard it all, and seen it all."
+
+"My darling," said the mother, embracing her, "I could not believe you
+more thoroughly even though I saw it all, and heard it all."
+
+That night Mrs. Wortle felt herself constrained to tell the whole story to
+her husband.  It was indeed impossible for her to keep any secret from her
+husband.  When Mary, in her younger years, had torn her frock or cut her
+finger, that was always told to the Doctor.  If a gardener was seen idling
+his time, or a housemaid flirting with the groom, that certainly would be
+told to the Doctor.  What comfort does a woman get out of her husband
+unless she may be allowed to talk to him about everything?  When it had
+been first proposed that Lord Carstairs should come into the house as a
+private pupil she had expressed her fear to the Doctor,--because of Mary.
+The Doctor had ridiculed her fears, and this had been the result.  Of
+course she must tell the Doctor.  "Oh, dear," she said, "what do you think
+has happened while we were up in London?"
+
+"Carstairs was here."
+
+"Oh, yes; he was here.  He came on purpose to make a regular declaration
+of love to Mary."
+
+"Nonsense."
+
+"But he did, Jeffrey."
+
+"How do you know he came on purpose."
+
+"He told her so."
+
+"I did not think the boy had so much spirit in him," said the Doctor.
+This was a way of looking at it which Mrs. Wortle had not expected.  Her
+husband seemed rather to approve than otherwise of what had been done.  At
+any rate, he had expressed none of that loud horror which she had
+expected.  "Nevertheless," continued the Doctor, "he's a stupid fool for
+his pains."
+
+"I don't know that he is a fool," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"Yes; he is.  He is not yet twenty, and he has all Oxford before him.  How
+did Mary behave?"
+
+"Like an angel," said Mary's mother.
+
+"That's of course.  You and I are bound to believe so.  But what did she
+do, and what did she say?"
+
+"She told him that it was simply impossible."
+
+"So it is,--I'm afraid.  She at any rate was bound to give him no
+encouragement."
+
+"She gave him none.  She feels quite strongly that it is altogether
+impossible.  What would Lord Bracy say?"
+
+"If Carstairs were but three or four years older," said the Doctor,
+proudly, "Lord Bracy would have much to be thankful for in the attachment
+on the part of his son, if it were met by a return of affection on the
+part of my daughter.  What better could he want?"
+
+"But he is only a boy," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"No; that's where it is.  And Mary was quite right to tell him that it is
+impossible.  It is impossible.  And I trust, for her sake, that his words
+have not touched her young heart."
+
+"Oh, no," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"Had it been otherwise how could we have been angry with the child?"
+
+Now this did seem to the mother to be very much in contradiction to that
+which the Doctor had himself said when she had whispered to him that Lord
+Carstairs's coming might be dangerous.  "I was afraid of it, as you know,"
+said she.
+
+"His character has altered during the last twelve months."
+
+"I suppose when boys grow into men it is so with them."
+
+"Not so quickly," said the Doctor.  "A boy when he leaves Eton is not
+generally thinking of these things."
+
+"A boy at Eton is not thrown into such society," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"I suppose his being here and seeing Mary every day has done it.  Poor
+Mary!"
+
+"I don't think she is poor at all," said Mary's mother.
+
+"I am afraid she must not dream of her young lover."
+
+"Of course she will not dream of him.  She has never entertained any idea
+of the kind.  There never was a girl with less nonsense of that kind than
+Mary.  When Lord Carstairs spoke to her to-day I do not suppose she had
+thought about him more than any other boy that has been here."
+
+"But she will think now."
+
+"No;--not in the least.  She knows it is impossible."
+
+"Nevertheless she will think about it.  And so will you."
+
+"I!"
+
+"Yes,--why not?  Why should you be different from other mothers?  Why
+should I not think about it as other fathers might do?  It is impossible.
+I wish it were not.  For Mary's sake, I wish he were three or four years
+older.  But he is as he is, and we know that it is impossible.
+Nevertheless, it is natural that she should think about him.  I only hope
+that she will not think about him too much."  So saying he closed the
+conversation for that night.
+
+Mary did not think very much about "it" in such a way as to create
+disappointment.  She at once realised the impossibilities, so far as to
+perceive that the young lord was the top brick of the chimney as far as
+she was concerned.  The top brick of the chimney may be very desirable,
+but one doesn't cry for it, because it is unattainable.  Therefore Mary
+did not in truth think of loving her young lover.  He had been to her a
+very nice boy; and so he was still; that;--that, and nothing more.  Then
+had come this little episode in her life which seemed to lend it a gentle
+tinge of romance.  But had she inquired of her bosom she would have
+declared that she had not been in love.  With her mother there was perhaps
+something of regret.  But it was exactly the regret which may be felt in
+reference to the top brick.  It would have been so sweet had it been
+possible; but then it was so evidently impossible.
+
+With the Doctor the feeling was somewhat different.  It was not quite so
+manifest to him that this special brick was altogether unattainable, nor
+even that it was quite at the top of the chimney.  There was no reason why
+his daughter should not marry an earl's son and heir.  No doubt the lad
+had been confided to him in trust.  No doubt it would have been his duty
+to have prevented anything of the kind, had anything of the kind seemed to
+him to be probable.  Had there been any moment in which the duty had
+seemed to him to be a duty, he would have done it, even though it had been
+necessary to caution the Earl to take his son away from Bowick.  But there
+had been nothing of the kind.  He had acted in the simplicity of his
+heart, and this had been the result.  Of course it was impossible.  He
+acknowledged to himself that it was so, because of the necessity of those
+Oxford studies and those long years which would be required for the taking
+of the degree.  But to his thinking there was no other ground for saying
+that it was impossible.  The thing must stand as it was.  If this youth
+should show himself to be more constant than other youths,--which was not
+probable,--and if, at the end of three or four years, Mary should not have
+given her heart to any other lover,--which was also improbable,--why,
+then, it might come to pass that he should some day find himself
+father-in-law to the future Earl Bracy.  Though Mary did not think of it,
+nor Mrs. Wortle, he thought of it,--so as to give an additional interest
+to these disturbed days.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE PALACE.
+
+THE possible glory of Mary's future career did not deter the Doctor from
+thinking of his troubles,--and especially that trouble with the Bishop
+which was at present heavy on his hand.  He had determined not to go on
+with his action, and had so resolved because he had felt, in his more
+sober moments, that in bringing the Bishop to disgrace, he would be as a
+bird soiling its own nest.  It was that conviction, and not any idea as to
+the sufficiency or insufficiency, as to the truth or falsehood, of the
+editor's apology, which had actuated him.  As he had said to his lawyer,
+he did not in the least care for the newspaper people.  He could not
+condescend to be angry with them.  The abominable joke as to the two verbs
+was altogether in their line.  As coming from them, they were no more to
+him than the ribald words of boys which he might hear in the street.  The
+offence to him had come from the Bishop,--and he resolved to spare the
+Bishop because of the Church.  But yet something must be done.  He could
+not leave the man to triumph over him.  If nothing further were done in
+the matter, the Bishop would have triumphed over him.  As he could not
+bring himself to expose the Bishop, he must see whether he could not reach
+the man by means of his own power of words;--so he wrote as follows;--
+
+
+"MY DEAR LORD,--I have to own that this letter is written with feelings
+which have been very much lacerated by what your lordship has done.  I
+must tell you, in the first place, that I have abandoned my intention of
+bringing an action against the proprietors of the scurrilous newspaper
+which your lordship sent me, because I am unwilling to bring to public
+notice the fact of a quarrel between a clergyman of the Church of England
+and his Bishop.  I think that, whatever may be the difficulty between us,
+it should be arranged without bringing down upon either of us adverse
+criticism from the public press.  I trust your lordship will appreciate my
+feeling in this matter.  Nothing less strong could have induced me to
+abandon what seems to be the most certain means by which I could obtain
+redress.
+
+"I had seen the paper which your lordship sent to me before it came to me
+from the palace.  The scurrilous, unsavoury, and vulgar words which it
+contained did not matter to me much.  I have lived long enough to know
+that, let a man's own garments be as clean as they may be, he cannot hope
+to walk through the world without rubbing against those who are dirty.  It
+was only when those words came to me from your lordship,--when I found
+that the expressions which I found in that paper were those to which your
+lordship had before alluded as being criticisms on my conduct in the
+metropolitan press,--criticisms so grave as to make your lordship think it
+necessary to admonish me respecting them,--it was only then, I say, that I
+considered them to be worthy of my notice.  When your lordship, in
+admonishing me, found it necessary to refer me to the metropolitan press,
+and to caution me to look to my conduct because the metropolitan press had
+expressed its dissatisfaction, it was, I submit to you, natural for me to
+ask you where I should find that criticism which had so strongly affected
+your lordship's judgment.  There are perhaps half a score of newspapers
+published in London whose animadversions I, as a clergyman, might have
+reason to respect,--even if I did not fear them.  Was I not justified in
+thinking that at least some two or three of these had dealt with my
+conduct, when your lordship held the metropolitan press _in terrorem_ over
+my head?  I applied to your lordship for the names of these newspapers,
+and your lordship, when pressed for a reply, sent to me--that copy of
+'Everybody's Business.'
+
+"I ask your lordship to ask yourself whether, so far, I have overstated
+anything.  Did not that paper come to me as the only sample you were able
+to send me of criticism made on my conduct in the metropolitan press?  No
+doubt my conduct was handled there in very severe terms.  No doubt the
+insinuations, if true,--or if of such kind as to be worthy of credit with
+your lordship, whether true or false,--were severe, plain-spoken, and
+damning.  The language was so abominable, so vulgar, so nauseous, that I
+will not trust myself to repeat it.  Your lordship, probably, when sending
+me one copy, kept another.  Now, I must ask your lordship,--and I must beg
+of your lordship for a reply,--whether the periodical itself has such a
+character as to justify your lordship in founding a complaint against a
+clergyman on its unproved statements, and also whether the facts of the
+case, as they were known to you, were not such as to make your lordship
+well aware that the insinuations were false.  Before these ribald words
+were printed, your lordship had heard all the facts of the case from my
+own lips.  Your lordship had known me and my character for, I think, a
+dozen years.  You know the character that I bear among others as a
+clergyman, a schoolmaster, and a gentleman.  You have been aware how great
+is the friendship I have felt for the unfortunate gentleman whose career
+is in question, and for the lady who bears his name.  When you read those
+abominable words did they induce your lordship to believe that I had been
+guilty of the inexpressible treachery of making love to the poor lady
+whose misfortunes I was endeavouring to relieve, and of doing so almost in
+my wife's presence?
+
+"I defy you to have believed them.  Men are various, and their minds work
+in different ways,--but the same causes will produce the same effects.
+You have known too much of me to have thought it possible that I should
+have done as I was accused.  I should hold a man to be no less than mad
+who could so have believed, knowing as much as your lordship knew.  Then
+how am I to reconcile to my idea of your lordship's character the fact
+that you should have sent me that paper?  What am I to think of the
+process going on in your lordship's mind when your lordship could have
+brought yourself to use a narrative which you must have known to be false,
+made in a newspaper which you knew to be scurrilous, as the ground for a
+solemn admonition to a clergyman of my age and standing?  You wrote to me,
+as is evident from the tone and context of your lordship's letter, because
+you found that the metropolitan press had denounced my conduct.  And this
+was the proof you sent to me that such had been the case!
+
+"It occurred to me at once that, as the paper in question had vilely
+slandered me, I could redress myself by an action of law, and that I could
+prove the magnitude of the evil done me by showing the grave importance
+which your lordship had attached to the words.  In this way I could have
+forced an answer from your lordship to the questions which I now put to
+you.  Your lordship would have been required to state on oath whether you
+believed those insinuations or not; and, if so, why you believed them.  On
+grounds which I have already explained I have thought it improper to do
+so.  Having abandoned that course, I am unable to force any answer from
+your lordship.  But I appeal to your sense of honour and justice whether
+you should not answer my questions;--and I also ask from your lordship an
+ample apology, if, on consideration, you shall feel that you have done me
+an undeserved injury.--I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship's
+most obedient, very humble servant,
+
+"JEFFREY WORTLE."
+
+
+He was rather proud of this letter as he read it to himself, and yet a
+little afraid of it, feeling that he had addressed his Bishop in very
+strong language.  It might be that the Bishop should send him no answer at
+all, or some curt note from his chaplain in which it would be explained
+that the tone of the letter precluded the Bishop from answering it.  What
+should he do then?  It was not, he thought, improbable, that the curt note
+from the chaplain would be all that he might receive.  He let the letter
+lie by him for four-and-twenty hours after he had composed it, and then
+determined that not to send it would be cowardly.  He sent it, and then
+occupied himself for an hour or two in meditating the sort of letter he
+would write to the Bishop when that curt reply had come from the chaplain.
+
+That further letter must be one which must make all amicable intercourse
+between him and the Bishop impossible.  And it must be so written as to be
+fit to meet the public eye if he should be ever driven by the Bishop's
+conduct to put it in print.  A great wrong had been done him;--a great
+wrong!  The Bishop had been induced by influences which should have had no
+power over him to use his episcopal rod and to smite him,--him Dr. Wortle!
+He would certainly show the Bishop that he should have considered
+beforehand whom he was about to smite.  "'Amo' in the cool of the
+evening!"  And that given as an expression of opinion from the metropolitan
+press in general!  He had spared the Bishop as far as that action was
+concerned, but he would not spare him should he be driven to further
+measures by further injustice.  In this way he lashed himself again into a
+rage.  Whenever those odious words occurred to him he was almost mad with
+anger against the Bishop.
+
+When the letter had been two days sent, so that he might have had a reply
+had a reply come to him by return of post, he put a copy of it into his
+pocket and rode off to call on Mr. Puddicombe.  He had thought of showing
+it to Mr. Puddicombe before he sent it, but his mind had revolted from
+such submission to the judgment of another.  Mr. Puddicombe would no doubt
+have advised him not to send it, and then he would have been almost
+compelled to submit to such advice.  But the letter was gone now.  The
+Bishop had read it, and no doubt re-read it two or three times.  But he
+was anxious that some other clergyman should see it,--that some other
+clergyman should tell him that, even if inexpedient, it had still been
+justified.  Mr. Puddicombe had been made acquainted with the former
+circumstances of the affair; and now, with his mind full of his own
+injuries, he went again to Mr. Puddicombe.
+
+"It is just the sort of letter that you would write, as a matter of
+course," said Mr. Puddicombe.
+
+"Then I hope that you think it is a good letter?"
+
+"Good as being expressive, and good also as being true, I do think it."
+
+"But not good as being wise?"
+
+"Had I been in your case I should have thought it unnecessary.  But you
+are self-demonstrative, and cannot control your feelings."
+
+"I do not quite understand you."
+
+"What did it all matter?  The Bishop did a foolish thing in talking of the
+metropolitan press.  But he had only meant to put you on your guard."
+
+"I do not choose to be put on my guard in that way," said the Doctor.
+
+"No; exactly.  And he should have known you better than to suppose you
+would bear it.  Then you pressed him, and he found himself compelled to
+send you that stupid newspaper.  Of course he had made a mistake.  But
+don't you think that the world goes easier when mistakes are forgiven?"
+
+"I did forgive it, as far as foregoing the action."
+
+"That, I think, was a matter of course.  If you had succeeded in putting
+the poor Bishop into a witness-box you would have had every sensible
+clergyman in England against you.  You felt that yourself."
+
+"Not quite that," said the Doctor.
+
+"Something very near it; and therefore you withdrew.  But you cannot get
+the sense of the injury out of your mind, and, therefore, you have
+persecuted the Bishop with that letter."
+
+"Persecuted?"
+
+"He will think so.  And so should I, had it been addressed to me.  As I
+said before, all your arguments are true,--only I think you have made so
+much more of the matter than was necessary!  He ought not to have sent you
+that newspaper, nor ought he to have talked about the metropolitan press.
+But he did you no harm; nor had he wished to do you harm;--and perhaps it
+might have been as well to pass it over."
+
+"Could you have done so?"
+
+"I cannot imagine myself in such a position.  I could not, at any rate,
+have written such a letter as that, even if I would; and should have been
+afraid to write it if I could.  I value peace and quiet too greatly to
+quarrel with my bishop,--unless, indeed, he should attempt to impose upon
+my conscience.  There was nothing of that kind here.  I think I should
+have seen that he had made a mistake, and have passed it over."
+
+The Doctor, as he rode home, was, on the whole, better pleased with his
+visit than he had expected to be.  He had been told that his letter was
+argumentative and true, and that in itself had been much.
+
+At the end of the week he received a reply from the Bishop, and found that
+it was not, at any rate, written by the chaplain.
+
+
+"MY DEAR DR. WORTLE," said the reply; "your letter has pained me
+exceedingly, because I find that I have caused you a degree of annoyance
+which I am certainly very sorry I have inflicted.  When I wrote to you in
+my letter,--which I certainly did not intend as an admonition,--about the
+metropolitan press, I only meant to tell you, for your own information,
+that the newspapers were making reference to your affair with Mr.
+Peacocke.  I doubt whether I knew anything of the nature of 'Everybody's
+Business.' I am not sure even whether I had ever actually read the words
+to which you object so strongly.  At any rate, they had had no weight with
+me.  If I had read them,--which I probably did very cursorily,--they did
+not rest on my mind at all when I wrote to you.  My object was to caution
+you, not at all as to your own conduct, but as to others who were speaking
+evil of you.
+
+"As to the action of which you spoke so strongly when I had the pleasure
+of seeing you here, I am very glad that you abandoned it, for your own
+sake and for mine, and the sake of all us generally to whom the peace of
+the Church is dear.
+
+"As to the nature of the language in which you have found yourself
+compelled to write to me, I must remind you that it is unusual as coming
+from a clergyman to a bishop.  I am, however, ready to admit that the
+circumstances of the case were unusual, and I can understand that you
+should have felt the matter severely.  Under these circumstances, I trust
+that the affair may now be allowed to rest without any breach of those
+kind feelings which have hitherto existed between us.--Yours very
+faithfully,
+
+"C. BROUGHTON."
+
+
+"It is a beastly letter," the Doctor said to himself, when he had read it,
+"a beastly letter;" and then he put it away without saying any more about
+it to himself or to any one else.  It had appeared to him to be a "beastly
+letter," because it had exactly the effect which the Bishop had intended.
+It did not eat "humble pie;" it did not give him the full satisfaction of
+a complete apology; and yet it left no room for a further rejoinder.  It
+had declared that no censure had been intended, and expressed sorrow that
+annoyance had been caused.  But yet to the Doctor's thinking it was an
+unmanly letter.  "Not intended as an admonition!"  Then why had the Bishop
+written in that severely affectionate and episcopal style?  He had
+intended it as an admonition, and the excuse was false.  So thought the
+Doctor, and comprised all his criticism in the one epithet given above.
+After that he put the letter away, and determined to think no more about
+it.
+
+"Will you come in and see Mrs. Peacocke after lunch?" the Doctor said to
+his wife the next morning.  They paid their visit together; and after
+that, when the Doctor called on the lady, he was generally accompanied by
+Mrs. Wortle.  So much had been effected by 'Everybody's Business,' and its
+abominations.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE JOURNEY.
+
+WE will now follow Mr. Peacocke for a while upon his journey.  He began
+his close connection with Robert Lefroy by paying the man's bill at the
+inn before he left Broughton, and after that found himself called upon to
+defray every trifle of expense incurred as they went along.  Lefroy was
+very anxious to stay for a week in town.  It would, no doubt, have been
+two weeks or a month had his companion given way;--but on this matter a
+line of conduct had been fixed by Mr. Peacocke in conjunction with the
+Doctor from which he never departed.  "If you will not be guided by me, I
+will go without you," Mr. Peacocke had said, "and leave you to follow your
+own devices on your own resources."
+
+"And what can you do by yourself?"
+
+"Most probably I shall be able to learn all that I want to learn.  It may
+be that I shall fail to learn anything either with you or without you.  I
+am willing to make the attempt with you if you will come along at
+once;--but I will not be delayed for a single day.  I shall go whether you
+go or stay."  Then Lefroy had yielded, and had agreed to be put on board a
+German steamer starting from Southampton to New York.
+
+But an hour or two before the steamer started he made a revelation.  "This
+is all gammon, Peacocke," he said, when on board.
+
+"What is all gammon?"
+
+"My taking you across to the States."
+
+"Why is it gammon?"
+
+"Because Ferdinand died more than a year since;--almost immediately after
+you took her off."
+
+"Why did you not tell me that at Bowick?"
+
+"Because you were so uncommon uncivil.  Was it likely I should have told
+you that when you cut up so uncommon rough?"
+
+"An honest man would have told me the very moment that he saw me."
+
+"When one's poor brother has died, one does not blurt it like that all at
+once."
+
+"Your poor brother!"
+
+"Why not my poor brother as well as anybody else's?  And her husband too!
+How was I to let it out in that sort of way?  At any rate he is dead as
+Julius Caesar.  I saw him buried,--right away at 'Frisco."
+
+"Did he go to San Francisco?"
+
+"Yes,--we both went there right away from St. Louis.  When we got up to
+St. Louis we were on our way with them other fellows.  Nobody meant to
+disturb you; but Ferdy got drunk, and would go and have a spree, as he
+called it."
+
+"A spree, indeed!"
+
+"But we were off by train to Kansas at five o'clock the next morning.  The
+devil wouldn't keep him sober, and he died of D.T. the day after we got
+him to 'Frisco.  So there's the truth of it, and you needn't go to New
+York at all.  Hand me the dollars.  I'll be off to the States; and you can
+go back and marry the widow,--or leave her alone, just as you please."
+
+They were down below when this story was told, sitting on their
+portmanteaus in the little cabin in which they were to sleep.  The
+prospect of the journey certainly had no attraction for Mr. Peacocke.  His
+companion was most distasteful to him; the ship was abominable; the
+expense was most severe.  How glad would he avoid it all if it were
+possible!  "You know it all as well as if you were there," said Robert,
+"and were standing on his grave."  He did believe it.  The man in all
+probability had at the last moment told the true story.  Why not go back
+and be married again?  The Doctor could be got to believe it.
+
+But then if it were not true?  It was only for a moment that he doubted.
+"I must go to 'Frisco all the same," he said.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because I must in truth stand upon his grave.  I must have proof that he
+has been buried there."
+
+"Then you may go by yourself," said Robert Lefroy.  He had said this more
+than once or twice already, and had been made to change his tone.  He
+could go or stay as he pleased, but no money would be paid to him until
+Peacocke had in his possession positive proof of Ferdinand Lefroy's death.
+So the two made their unpleasant journey to New York together.  There was
+complaining on the way, even as to the amount of liquor that should be
+allowed.  Peacocke would pay for nothing that he did not himself order.
+Lefroy had some small funds of his own, and was frequently drunk while on
+board.  There were many troubles; but still they did at last reach New
+York.
+
+Then there was a great question whether they would go on direct from
+thence to San Francisco, or delay themselves three or four days by going
+round by St. Louis.  Lefroy was anxious to go to St. Louis,--and on that
+account Peacocke was almost resolved to take tickets direct through for
+San Francisco.  Why should Lefroy wish to go to St. Louis?  But then, if
+the story were altogether false, some truth might be learned at St. Louis;
+and it was at last decided that thither they would go.  As they went on
+from town to town, changing carriages first at one place and then at
+another, Lefroy's manner became worse and worse, and his language more and
+more threatening.  Peacocke was asked whether he thought a man was to be
+brought all that distance without being paid for his time.  "You will be
+paid when you have performed your part of the bargain," said Peacocke.
+
+"I'll see some part of the money at St. Louis," said Lefroy, "or I'll know
+the reason why.  A thousand dollars!  What are a thousand dollars?  Hand
+out the money."  This was said as they were sitting together in a corner or
+separated portion of the smoking-room of a little hotel at which they were
+waiting for a steamer which was to take them down the Mississippi to St.
+Louis.  Peacocke looked round and saw that they were alone.
+
+"I shall hand out nothing till I see your brother's grave," said Peacocke.
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"Not a dollar!  What is the good of your going on like that?  You ought to
+know me well enough by this time."
+
+"But you do not know me well enough.  You must have taken me for a very
+tame sort o' critter."
+
+"Perhaps I have."
+
+"Maybe you'll change your mind."
+
+"Perhaps I shall.  It is quite possible that you should murder me.  But
+you will not get any money by that."
+
+"Murder you.  You ain't worth murdering."  Then they sat in silence,
+waiting another hour and a half till the steamboat came.  The reader will
+understand that it must have been a bad time for Mr. Peacocke.
+
+They were on the steamer together for about twenty-four hours, during
+which Lefroy hardly spoke a word.  As far as his companion could
+understand he was out of funds, because he remained sober during the
+greater part of the day, taking only what amount of liquor was provided
+for him.  Before, however, they reached St. Louis, which they did late at
+night, he had made acquaintance with certain fellow-travellers, and was
+drunk and noisy when they got out upon the quay.  Mr. Peacocke bore his
+position as well as he could, and accompanied him up to the hotel.  It was
+arranged that they should remain two days at St. Louis, and then start for
+San Francisco by the railway which runs across the State of Kansas.
+Before he went to bed Lefroy insisted on going into the large hall in
+which, as is usual in American hotels, men sit and loafe and smoke and
+read the newspapers.  Here, though it was twelve o'clock, there was still
+a crowd; and Lefroy, after he had seated himself and lit his cigar, got up
+from his seat and addressed all the men around him.
+
+"Here's a fellow," said he, "has come out from England to find out what's
+become of Ferdinand Lefroy."
+
+"I knew Ferdinand Lefroy," said one man, "and I know you too, Master
+Robert."
+
+"What has become of Ferdinand Lefroy?" asked Mr. Peacocke.
+
+"He's gone where all the good fellows go," said another.
+
+"You mean that he is dead?" asked Peacocke.
+
+"Of course he's dead," said Robert.  "I've been telling him so ever since
+we left England; but he is such a d---- unbelieving infidel that he
+wouldn't credit the man's own brother.  He won't learn much here about
+him."
+
+"Ferdinand Lefroy," said the first man, "died on the way as he was going
+out West.  I was over the road the day after."
+
+"You know nothing about it," said Robert.  "He died at 'Frisco two days
+after we'd got him there."
+
+"He died at Ogden Junction, where you turn down to Utah City."
+
+"You didn't see him dead," said the other.
+
+"If I remember right," continued the first man, "they'd taken him away to
+bury him somewhere just there in the neighbourhood.  I didn't care much
+about him, and I didn't ask any particular questions.  He was a drunken
+beast,--better dead than alive."
+
+"You've been drunk as often as him, I guess," said Robert.
+
+"I never gave nobody the trouble to bury me at any rate," said the other.
+
+"Do you mean to say positively of your own knowledge," asked Peacocke,
+"that Ferdinand Lefroy died at that station?"
+
+"Ask him; he's his brother, and he ought to know best."
+
+"I tell you," said Robert, earnestly, "that we carried him on to 'Frisco,
+and there he died.  If you think you know best, you can go to Utah City
+and wait there till you hear all about it.  I guess they'll make you one
+of their elders if you wait long enough."  Then they all went to bed.
+
+It was now clear to Mr. Peacocke that the man as to whose life or death he
+was so anxious had really died.  The combined evidence of these men, which
+had come out without any preconcerted arrangement, was proof to his mind.
+But there was no evidence which he could take back with him to England and
+use there as proof in a court of law, or even before the Bishop and Dr.
+Wortle.  On the next morning, before Robert Lefroy was up, he got hold of
+the man who had been so positive that death had overtaken the poor wretch
+at the railway station which is distant from San Francisco two days'
+journey.  Had the man died there, and been buried there, nothing would be
+known of him in San Francisco.  The journey to San Francisco would be
+entirely thrown away, and he would be as badly off as ever.
+
+"I wouldn't like to say for certain," said the man when he was
+interrogated.  "I only tell you what they told me.  As I was passing along
+somebody said as Ferdy Lefroy had been taken dead out of the cars on to
+the platform.  Now you know as much about it as I do."
+
+He was thus assured that at any rate the journey to San Francisco had not
+been altogether a fiction.  The man had gone "West," as had been said, and
+nothing more would be known of him at St. Louis.  He must still go on upon
+his journey and make such inquiry as might be possible at the Ogden
+Junction.
+
+On the day but one following they started again, taking their tickets as
+far as Leavenworth.  They were told by the officials that they would find
+a train at Leavenworth waiting to take them on across country into the
+regular San Francisco line.  But, as is not unusual with railway officials
+in that part of the world, they were deceived.  At Leavenworth they were
+forced to remain for four-and-twenty hours, and there they put themselves
+up at a miserable hotel in which they were obliged to occupy the same
+room.  It was a rough, uncouth place, in which, as it seemed to Mr.
+Peacocke, the men were more uncourteous to him, and the things around more
+unlike to what he had met elsewhere, than in any other town of the Union.
+Robert Lefroy, since the first night at St. Louis, had become sullen
+rather than disobedient.  He had not refused to go on when the moment came
+for starting, but had left it in doubt till the last moment whether he did
+or did not intend to prosecute his journey.  When the ticket was taken for
+him he pretended to be altogether indifferent about it, and would himself
+give no help whatever in any of the usual troubles of travelling.  But as
+far as this little town of Leavenworth he had been carried, and Peacocke
+now began to think it probable that he might succeed in taking him to San
+Francisco.
+
+On that night he endeavoured to induce him to go first to bed, but in this
+he failed.  Lefroy insisted on remaining down at the bar, where he had
+ordered for himself some liquor for which Mr. Peacocke, in spite of all
+his efforts to the contrary, would have to pay.  If the man would get
+drunk and lie there, he could not help himself.  On this he was
+determined, that whether with or without the man, he would go on by the
+first train;--and so he took himself to his bed.
+
+He had been there perhaps half-an-hour when his companion came into the
+room,--certainly not drunk.  He seated himself on his bed, and then,
+pulling to him a large travelling-bag which he used, he unpacked it
+altogether, laying all the things which it contained out upon the bed.
+"What are you doing that for?" said Mr. Peacocke; "we have to start from
+here to-morrow morning at five."
+
+"I'm not going to start to-morrow at five, nor yet to-morrow at all, nor
+yet next day."
+
+"You are not?"
+
+"Not if I know it.  I have had enough of this game.  I am not going
+further West for any one.  Hand out the money.  You have been told
+everything about my brother, true and honest, as far as I know it.  Hand
+out the money."
+
+"Not a dollar," said Peacocke.  "All that I have heard as yet will be of
+no service to me.  As far as I can see, you will earn it; but you will
+have to come on a little further yet."
+
+"Not a foot; I ain't a-going out of this room to-morrow."
+
+"Then I must go without you;--that's all."
+
+"You may go and be ----.  But you'll have to shell out the money first, old
+fellow."
+
+"Not a dollar."
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"Certainly I will not.  How often have I told you so."
+
+"Then I shall take it."
+
+"That you will find very difficult.  In the first place, if you were to
+cut my throat----"
+
+"Which is just what I intend to do."
+
+"If you were to cut my throat,--which in itself will be difficult,--you
+would only find the trifle of gold which I have got for our journey as far
+as 'Frisco.  That won't do you much good.  The rest is in circular notes,
+which to you would be of no service whatever."
+
+"My God," said the man suddenly, "I am not going to be done in this way."
+And with that he drew out a bowie-knife which he had concealed among the
+things which he had extracted from the bag.  "You don't know the sort of
+country you're in now.  They don't think much here of the life of such a
+skunk as you.  If you mean to live till to-morrow morning you must come to
+terms."
+
+The room was a narrow chamber in which two beds ran along the wall, each
+with its foot to the other, having a narrow space between them and the
+other wall.  Peacocke occupied the one nearest to the door.  Lefroy now
+got up from the bed in the further corner, and with the bowie-knife in his
+hand rushed against the door as though to prevent his companion's escape.
+Peacocke, who was in bed undressed, sat up at once; but as he did so he
+brought a revolver out from under his pillow.  "So you have been and armed
+yourself, have you?" said Robert Lefroy.
+
+"Yes," said Peacocke;--"if you come nearer me with that knife I shall
+shoot you.  Put it down."
+
+"Likely I shall put it down at your bidding."
+
+With the pistol still held at the other man's head, Peacocke slowly
+extracted himself from his bed.  "Now," said he, "if you don't come away
+from the door I shall fire one barrel just to let them know in the house
+what sort of affair is going on.  Put the knife down.  You know that I
+shall not hurt you then."
+
+After hesitating for a moment or two, Lefroy did put the knife down.  "I
+didn't mean anything, old fellow," said he.  "I only wanted to frighten
+you."
+
+"Well; you have frightened me.  Now, what's to come next?"
+
+"No, I ain't;--not frightened you a bit.  A pistol's always better than a
+knife any day.  Well now, I'll tell ye how it all is."  Saying this, he
+seated himself on his own bed, and began a long narration.  He would not
+go further West than Leavenworth.  Whether he got his money or whether he
+lost it, he would not travel a foot further.  There were reasons which
+would make it disagreeable for him to go into California.  But he made a
+proposition.  If Peacocke would only give him money enough to support
+himself for the necessary time, he would remain at Leavenworth till his
+companion should return there, or would make his way to Chicago, and stay
+there till Peacocke should come to him.  Then he proceeded to explain how
+absolute evidence might be obtained at San Francisco as to his brother's
+death.  "That fellow was lying altogether," he said, "about my brother
+dying at the Ogden station.  He was very bad there, no doubt, and we
+thought it was going to be all up with him.  He had the horrors there,
+worse than I ever saw before, and I hope never to see the like again.  But
+we did get him on to San Francisco; and when he was able to walk into the
+city on his own legs, I thought that, might be, he would rally and come
+round.  However, in two days he died;--and we buried him in the big
+cemetery just out of the town."
+
+"Did you put a stone over him?"
+
+"Yes; there is a stone as large as life.  You'll find the name on
+it,--Ferdinand Lefroy of Kilbrack, Louisiana.  Kilbrack was the name of
+our plantation, where we should be living now as gentlemen ought, with
+three hundred niggers of our own, but for these accursed Northern
+hypocrites."
+
+"How can I find the stone?"
+
+"There's a chap there who knows, I guess, where all them graves are to be
+found.  But it's on the right hand, a long way down, near the far wall at
+the bottom, just where the ground takes a little dip to the north.  It
+ain't so long ago but what the letters on the stone will be as fresh as if
+they were cut yesterday."
+
+"Does no one in San Francisco know of his death?"
+
+"There's a chap named Burke at Johnson's, the cigar-shop in Montgomery
+Street.  He was brother to one of our party, and he went out to the
+funeral.  Maybe you'll find him, or, any way, some traces of him."
+
+The two men sat up discussing the matter nearly the whole of the night,
+and Peacocke, before he started, had brought himself to accede to Lefroy's
+last proposition.  He did give the man money enough to support him for two
+or three weeks and also to take him to Chicago, promising at the same time
+that he would hand to him the thousand dollars at Chicago should he find
+him there at the appointed time, and should he also have found Ferdinand
+Lefroy's grave at San Francisco in the manner described.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+"NOBODY HAS CONDEMNED YOU HERE."
+
+MRS. WORTLE, when she perceived that her husband no longer called on Mrs.
+Peacocke alone, became herself more assiduous in her visits, till at last
+she too entertained a great liking for the woman.  When Mr. Peacocke had
+been gone for nearly a month she had fallen into a habit of going across
+every day after the performance of her own domestic morning duties, and
+remaining in the school-house for an hour.  On one morning she found that
+Mrs. Peacocke had just received a letter from New York, in which her
+husband had narrated his adventures so far.  He had written from
+Southampton, but not after the revelation which had been made to him there
+as to the death of Ferdinand.  He might have so done, but the information
+given to him had, at the spur of the moment, seemed to be so doubtful that
+he had refrained.  Then he had been able to think of it all during the
+voyage, and from New York he had written at great length, detailing
+everything.  Mrs. Peacocke did not actually read out loud the letter,
+which was full of such terms of affection as are common between man and
+wife, knowing that her title to be called a wife was not admitted by Mrs.
+Wortle; but she read much of it, and told all the circumstances as they
+were related.
+
+"Then," said Mrs. Wortle, "he certainly is--no more."  There came a
+certain accession of sadness to her voice, as she reflected that,
+after all, she was talking to this woman of the death of her undoubted
+husband.
+
+"Yes; he is dead--at last."  Mrs. Wortle uttered a deep sigh.  It was
+dreadful to her to think that a woman should speak in that way of the
+death of her husband.  "I know all that is going on in your mind," said
+Mrs. Peacocke, looking up into her face.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"Every thought.  You are telling yourself how terrible it is that a woman
+should speak of the death of her husband without a tear in her eye,
+without a sob,--without one word of sorrow."
+
+"It is very sad."
+
+"Of course it is sad.  Has it not all been sad?  But what would you have
+me do?  It is not because he was always bad to me,--because he marred all
+my early life, making it so foul a blotch that I hardly dare to look back
+upon it from the quietness and comparative purity of these latter days.
+It is not because he has so treated me as to make me feel that it has been
+a misfortune to me to be born, that I now receive these tidings with joy.
+It is because of him who has always been good to me as the other was bad,
+who has made me wonder at the noble instincts of a man, as the other has
+made me shudder at his possible meanness."
+
+"It has been very hard upon you," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"And hard upon him, who is dearer to me than my own soul.  Think of his
+conduct to me!  How he went away to ascertain the truth when he first
+heard tidings which made him believe that I was free to become his!  How
+he must have loved me then, when, after all my troubles, he took me to
+himself at the first moment that was possible!  Think, too, what he has
+done for me since,----and I for him!  How I have marred his life, while he
+has striven to repair mine!  Do I not owe him everything?"
+
+"Everything," said Mrs. Wortle,--"except to do what is wrong."
+
+"I did do what was wrong.  Would not you have done so under such
+circumstances?  Would not you have obeyed the man who had been to you so
+true a husband while he believed himself entitled to the name?  Wrong!  I
+doubt whether it was wrong.  It is hard to know sometimes what is right
+and what is wrong.  What he told me to do, that to me was right.  Had he
+told me to go away and leave him, I should have gone,--and have died.  I
+suppose that would have been right."  She paused as though she expected an
+answer.  But the subject was so difficult that Mrs. Wortle was unable to
+make one.  "I have sometimes wished that he had done so.  But as I think
+of it when I am alone, I feel how impossible that would have been to him.
+He could not have sent me away.  That which you call right would have been
+impossible to him whom I regard as the most perfect of human beings.  As
+far as I know him, he is faultless;--and yet, according to your judgment,
+he has committed a sin so deep that he must stand disgraced before the
+eyes of all men."
+
+"I have not said so."
+
+"It comes to that.  I know how good you are; how much I owe to you.  I
+know that Dr. Wortle and yourself have been so kind to us, that were I not
+grateful beyond expression I should be the meanest human creature.  Do not
+suppose that I am angry or vexed with you because you condemn me.  It is
+necessary that you should do so.  But how can I condemn myself;--or how
+can I condemn him?"
+
+"If you are both free now, it may be made right."
+
+"But how about repentance?  Will it be all right though I shall not have
+repented?  I will never repent.  There are laws in accordance with which I
+will admit that I have done wrong; but had I not broken those laws when he
+bade me, I should have hated myself through all my life afterwards."
+
+"It was very different."
+
+"If you could know, Mrs. Wortle, how difficult it would have been to go
+away and leave him!  It was not till he came to me and told me that he was
+going down to Texas, to see how it had been with my husband, that I ever
+knew what it was to love a man.  He had never said a word.  He tried not
+to look it.  But I knew that I had his heart and that he had mine.  From
+that moment I have thought of him day and night.  When I gave him my hand
+then as he parted from me, I gave it him as his own.  It has been his to
+do what he liked with it ever since, let who might live or who might die.
+Ought I not to rejoice that he is dead?"  Mrs. Wortle could not answer the
+question.  She could only shudder.  "It was not by any will of my own,"
+continued the eager woman, "that I married Ferdinand Lefroy.  Everything
+in our country was then destroyed.  All that we loved and all that we
+valued had been taken away from us.  War had destroyed everything.  When I
+was just springing out of childhood, we were ruined.  We had to go, all of
+us; women as well as men, girls as well as boys;--and be something else
+than we had been.  I was told to marry him."
+
+"That was wrong."
+
+"When everything is in ruin about you, what room is there for ordinary
+well-doing?  It seemed then that he would have some remnant of property.
+Our fathers had known each other long.  The wretched man whom drink
+afterwards made so vile might have been as good a gentleman as another, if
+things had gone well with him.  He could not have been a hero like him
+whom I will always call my husband; but it is not given to every man to be
+a hero."
+
+"Was he bad always from the first?"
+
+"He always drank,--from his wedding-day; and then Robert was with him, who
+was worse than he.  Between them they were very bad.  My life was a burden
+to me.  It was terrible.  It was a comfort to me even to be deserted and
+to be left.  Then came this Englishman in my way; and it seemed to me, on
+a sudden, that the very nature of mankind was altered.  He did not lie
+when he spoke.  He was never debased by drink.  He had other care than for
+himself.  For himself, I think, he never cared.  Since he has been here,
+in the school, have you found any cause of fault in him?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"No, indeed! nor ever will;--unless it be a fault to love a woman as he
+loves me.  See what he is doing now,--where he has gone,--what he has to
+suffer, coupled as he is with that wretch!  And all for my sake!"
+
+"For both your sakes."
+
+"He would have been none the worse had he chosen to part with me.  He was
+in no trouble.  I was not his wife; and he need only--bid me go.  There
+would have been no sin with him then,--no wrong.  Had he followed out your
+right and your wrong, and told me that, as we could not be man and wife,
+we must just part, he would have been in no trouble;--would he?"
+
+"I don't know how it would have been then," said Mrs. Wortle, who was by
+this time sobbing aloud in tears.
+
+"No; nor I, nor I.  I should have been dead;--but he?  He is a sinner now,
+so that he may not preach in your churches, or teach in your schools; so
+that your dear husband has to be ruined almost because he has been kind to
+him.  He then might have preached in any church,--have taught in any
+school.  What am I to think that God will think of it?  Will God condemn
+him?"
+
+"We must leave that to Him," sobbed Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"Yes; but in thinking of our souls we must reflect a little as to what we
+believe to be probable.  He, you say, has sinned,--is sinning still in
+calling me his wife.  Am I not to believe that if he were called to his
+long account he would stand there pure and bright, in glorious
+garments,--one fit for heaven, because he has loved others better than he
+has loved himself, because he has done to others as he might have wished
+that they should do to him?  I do believe it!  Believe!  I know it.  And
+if so, what am I to think of his sin, or of my own?  Not to obey him, not
+to love him, not to do in everything as he counsels me,--that, to me,
+would be sin.  To the best of my conscience he is my husband and my
+master.  I will not go into the rooms of such as you, Mrs. Wortle, good
+and kind as you are; but it is not because I do not think myself fit.  It
+is because I will not injure you in the estimation of those who do not
+know what is fit and what is unfit.  I am not ashamed of myself.  I owe it
+to him to blush for nothing that he has caused me to do.  I have but two
+judges,--the Lord in heaven, and he, my husband, upon earth."
+
+"Nobody has condemned you here."
+
+"Yes;--they have condemned me.  But I am not angry at that.  You do not
+think, Mrs. Wortle, that I can be angry with you,--so kind as you have
+been, so generous, so forgiving;--the more kind because you think that we
+are determined, headstrong sinners?  Oh no!  It is natural that you should
+think so,--but I think differently.  Circumstances have so placed me that
+they have made me unfit for your society.  If I had no decent gown to
+wear, or shoes to my feet, I should be unfit also;--but not on that
+account disgraced in my own estimation.  I comfort myself by thinking that
+I cannot be altogether bad when a man such as he has loved me and does
+love me."
+
+The two women, when they parted on that morning, kissed each other, which
+they had not done before; and Mrs. Wortle had been made to doubt whether,
+after all, the sin had been so very sinful.  She did endeavour to ask
+herself whether she would not have done the same in the same
+circumstances.  The woman, she thought, must have been right to have
+married the man whom she loved, when she heard that that first horrid
+husband was dead.  There could, at any rate, have been no sin in that.
+And then, what ought she to have done when the dead man,--dead as he was
+supposed to have been,--burst into her room?  Mrs. Wortle,--who found it
+indeed extremely difficult to imagine herself to be in such a
+position,--did at last acknowledge that, in such circumstances, she
+certainly would have done whatever Dr. Wortle had told her.  She could not
+bring it nearer to herself than that.  She could not suggest to herself
+two men as her own husbands.  She could not imagine that the Doctor had
+been either the bad husband, who had unexpectedly come to life,--or the
+good husband, who would not, in truth, be her husband at all; but she did
+determine, in her own mind, that, however all that might have been, she
+would clearly have done whatever the Doctor told her.  She would have
+sworn to obey him, even though, when swearing, she should not have really
+married him.  It was terrible to think of,--so terrible that she could not
+quite think of it; but in struggling to think of it her heart was softened
+towards this other woman.  After that day she never spoke further of the
+woman's sin.
+
+Of course she told it all to the Doctor,--not indeed explaining the
+working of her own mind as to that suggestion that he should have been, in
+his first condition, a very bad man, and have been reported dead, and have
+come again, in a second shape, as a good man.  She kept that to herself.
+But she did endeavour to describe the effect upon herself of the
+description the woman had given her of her own conduct.
+
+"I don't quite know how she could have done otherwise," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"Nor I either; I have always said so."
+
+"It would have been so very hard to go away, when he told her not."
+
+"It would have been very hard to go away," said the Doctor, "if he had
+told her to do so.  Where was she to go?  What was she to do?  They had
+been brought together by circumstances, in such a manner that it was, so
+to say, impossible that they should part.  It is not often that one comes
+across events like these, so altogether out of the ordinary course that
+the common rules of life seem to be insufficient for guidance.  To most of
+us it never happens; and it is better for us that it should not happen.
+But when it does, one is forced to go beyond the common rules.  It is that
+feeling which has made me give them my protection.  It has been a great
+misfortune; but, placed as I was, I could not help myself.  I could not
+turn them out.  It was clearly his duty to go, and almost as clearly mine
+to give her shelter till he should come back."
+
+"A great misfortune, Jeffrey?"
+
+"I am afraid so.  Look at this."  Then he handed to her a letter from a
+nobleman living at a great distance,--at a distance so great that Mrs.
+Stantiloup would hardly have reached him there,--expressing his intention
+to withdraw his two boys from the school at Christmas.
+
+"He doesn't give this as a reason."
+
+"No; we are not acquainted with each other personally, and he could hardly
+have alluded to my conduct in this matter.  It was easier for him to give
+a mere notice such as this.  But not the less do I understand it.  The
+intention was that the elder Mowbray should remain for another year, and
+the younger for two years.  Of course he is at liberty to change his mind;
+nor do I feel myself entitled to complain.  A school such as mine must
+depend on the credit of the establishment.  He has heard, no doubt,
+something of the story which has injured our credit, and it is natural
+that he should take the boys away."
+
+"Do you think that the school will be put an end to?"
+
+"It looks very like it."
+
+"Altogether?"
+
+"I shall not care to drag it on as a failure.  I am too old now to begin
+again with a new attempt if this collapses.  I have no offers to fill up
+the vacancies.  The parents of those who remain, of course, will know how
+it is going with the school.  I shall not be disposed to let it die of
+itself.  My idea at present is to carry it on without saying anything till
+the Christmas holidays, and then to give notice to the parents that the
+establishment will be closed at Midsummer."
+
+"Will it make you very unhappy?"
+
+"No doubt it will.  A man does not like to fail.  I am not sure but what I
+am less able to bear such failure than most men."
+
+"But you have sometimes thought of giving it up."
+
+"Have I?  I have not known it.  Why should I give it up?  Why should any
+man give up a profession while he has health and strength to carry it on?"
+
+"You have another."
+
+"Yes; but it is not the one to which my energies have been chiefly
+applied.  The work of a parish such as this can be done by one person.  I
+have always had a curate.  It is, moreover, nonsense to say that a man
+does not care most for that by which he makes his money.  I am to give up
+over L2000 a-year, which I have had not a trouble but a delight in making!
+It is like coming to the end of one's life."
+
+"Oh, Jeffrey!"
+
+"It has to be looked in the face, you know."
+
+"I wish,--I wish they had never come."
+
+"What is the good of wishing?  They came, and according to my way of
+thinking I did my duty by them.  Much as I am grieved by this, I protest
+that I would do the same again were it again to be done.  Do you think
+that I would be deterred from what I thought to be right by the
+machinations of a she-dragon such as that?"
+
+"Has she done it?"
+
+"Well, I think so," said the Doctor, after some little hesitation.  "I
+think it has been, in truth, her doing.  There has been a grand
+opportunity for slander, and she has used it with uncommon skill.  It was
+a wonderful chance in her favour.  She has been enabled without actual
+lies,--lies which could be proved to be lies,--to spread abroad reports
+which have been absolutely damning.  And she has succeeded in getting hold
+of the very people through whom she could injure me.  Of course all this
+correspondence with the Bishop has helped.  The Bishop hasn't kept it as a
+secret.  Why should he?"
+
+"The Bishop has had nothing to do with the school," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"No; but the things have been mixed up together.  Do you think it would
+have no effect with such a woman as Lady Anne Clifford, to be told that
+the Bishop had censured my conduct severely?  If it had not been for Mrs.
+Stantiloup, the Bishop would have heard nothing about it.  It is her
+doing.  And it pains me to feel that I have to give her credit for her
+skill and her energy."
+
+"Her wickedness, you mean."
+
+"What does it signify whether she has been wicked or not in this matter?"
+
+"Oh, Jeffrey!"
+
+"Her wickedness is a matter of course.  We all knew that beforehand.  If a
+person has to be wicked, it is a great thing for him to be successful in
+his wickedness.  He would have to pay the final penalty even if he failed.
+To be wicked and to do nothing is to be mean all round.  I am afraid that
+Mrs. Stantiloup will have succeeded in her wickedness."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+LORD BRACY'S LETTER.
+
+THE school and the parish went on through August and September, and up to
+the middle of October, very quietly.  The quarrel between the Bishop and
+the Doctor had altogether subsided.  People in the diocese had ceased to
+talk continually of Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke.  There was still alive a
+certain interest as to what might be the ultimate fate of the poor lady;
+but other matters had come up, and she no longer formed the one topic of
+conversation at all meetings.  The twenty boys at the school felt that, as
+their numbers had been diminished, so also had their reputation.  They
+were less loud, and, as other boys would have said of them, less "cocky"
+than of yore.  But they ate and drank and played, and, let us hope, learnt
+their lessons as usual.  Mrs. Peacocke had from time to time received
+letters from her husband, the last up to the time of which we speak having
+been written at the Ogden Junction, at which Mr. Peacocke had stopped for
+four-and-twenty hours with the object of making inquiry as to the
+statement made to him at St. Louis.  Here he learned enough to convince
+him that Robert Lefroy had told him the truth in regard to what had there
+occurred.  The people about the station still remembered the condition of
+the man who had been taken out of the car when suffering from delirium
+tremens; and remembered also that the man had not died there, but had been
+carried on by the next train to San Francisco.  One of the porters also
+declared that he had heard a few days afterwards that the sufferer had
+died almost immediately on his arrival at San Francisco.  Information as
+far as this Mr. Peacocke had sent home to his wife, and had added his firm
+belief that he should find the man's grave in the cemetery, and be able to
+bring home with him testimony to which no authority in England, whether
+social, episcopal, or judicial, would refuse to give credit.
+
+"Of course he will be married again," said Mrs. Wortle to her husband.
+
+"They shall be married here, and I will perform the ceremony.  I don't
+think the Bishop himself would object to that; and I shouldn't care a
+straw if he did."
+
+"Will he go on with the school?" whispered Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"Will the school go on?  If the school goes on, he will go on, I suppose.
+About that you had better ask Mrs. Stantiloup."
+
+"I will ask nobody but you," said the wife, putting up her face to kiss
+him.  As this was going on, everything was said to comfort Mrs. Peacocke,
+and to give her hopes of new life.  Mrs. Wortle told her how the Doctor
+had promised that he himself would marry them as soon as the forms of the
+Church and the legal requisitions would allow.  Mrs. Peacocke accepted all
+that was said to her quietly and thankfully, but did not again allow
+herself to be roused to such excitement as she had shown on the one
+occasion recorded.
+
+It was at this time that the Doctor received a letter which greatly
+affected his mode of thought at the time.  He had certainly become hipped
+and low-spirited, if not despondent, and clearly showed to his wife, even
+though he was silent, that his mind was still intent on the injury which
+that wretched woman had done him by her virulence.  But the letter of
+which we speak for a time removed this feeling, and gave him, as it were,
+a new life.  The letter, which was from Lord Bracy, was as follows;--
+
+
+"MY DEAR DOCTOR WORTLE.--Carstairs left us for Oxford yesterday, and
+before he went, startled his mother and me considerably by a piece of
+information.  He tells us that he is over head and ears in love with your
+daughter.  The communication was indeed made three days ago, but I told
+him that I should take a day or two to think of it before I wrote to you.
+He was very anxious, when he told me, to go off at once to Bowick, and to
+see you and your wife, and of course the young lady;--but this I stopped
+by the exercise of somewhat peremptory parental authority.  Then he
+informed me that he had been to Bowick, and had found his lady-love at
+home, you and Mrs. Wortle having by chance been absent at the time.  It
+seems that he declared himself to the young lady, who, in the exercise of
+a wise discretion, ran away from him and left him planted on the terrace.
+That is his account of what passed, and I do not in the least doubt its
+absolute truth.  It is at any rate quite clear, from his own showing, that
+the young lady gave him no encouragement.
+
+"Such having been the case, I do not think that I should have found it
+necessary to write to you at all had not Carstairs persevered with me till
+I promised to do so.  He was willing, he said, not to go to Bowick on
+condition that I would write to you on the subject.  The meaning of this
+is, that had he not been very much in earnest, I should have considered it
+best to let the matter pass on as such matters do, and be forgotten.  But
+he is very much in earnest.  However foolish it is,--or perhaps I had
+better say unusual,--that a lad should be in love before he is twenty, it
+is, I suppose, possible.  At any rate it seems to be the case with him,
+and he has convinced his mother that it would be cruel to ignore the fact.
+
+"I may at once say that, as far as you and your girl are concerned, I
+should be quite satisfied that he should choose for himself such a
+marriage.  I value rank, at any rate, as much as it is worth; but that he
+will have of his own, and does not need to strengthen it by intermarriage
+with another house of peculiarly old lineage.  As far as that is
+concerned, I should be contented.  As for money, I should not wish him to
+think of it in marrying.  If it comes, _tant mieux_.  If not, he will have
+enough of his own.  I write to you, therefore, exactly as I should do if
+you had happened to be a brother peer instead of a clergyman.
+
+"But I think that long engagements are very dangerous; and you probably
+will agree with me that they are likely to be more prejudicial to the girl
+than to the man.  It may be that, as difficulties arise in the course of
+years, he can forget the affair, and that she cannot.  He has many things
+of which to think; whereas she, perhaps, has only that one.  She may have
+made that thing so vital to her that it cannot be got under and conquered;
+whereas, without any fault or heartlessness on his part, occupation has
+conquered it for him.  In this case I fear that the engagement, if made,
+could not but be long.  I should be sorry that he should not take his
+degree.  And I do not think it wise to send a lad up to the University
+hampered with the serious feeling that he has already betrothed himself.
+
+"I tell you all just as it is, and I leave it to your wisdom to suggest
+what had better be done.  He wished me to promise that I would undertake
+to induce you to tell Miss Wortle of his conversation with me.  He said
+that he had a right to demand so much as that, and that, though he would
+not for the present go to Bowick, he should write to you.  The young
+gentleman seems to have a will of his own,--which I cannot say that I
+regret.  What you will do as to the young lady,--whether you will or will
+not tell her what I have written,--I must leave to yourself.  If you do, I
+am to send word to her from Lady Bracy to say that she shall be delighted
+to see her here.  She had better, however, come when that inflammatory
+young gentleman shall be at Oxford.  Yours very faithfully,
+
+"BRACY."
+
+
+This letter certainly did a great deal to invigorate the Doctor, and to
+console him in his troubles.  Even though the debated marriage might prove
+to be impossible, as it had been declared by the voices of all the Wortles
+one after another, still there was something in the tone in which it was
+discussed by the young man's father which was in itself a relief.  There
+was, at any rate, no contempt in the letter.  "I may at once say that, as
+far as you and your girl are concerned, I shall be very well pleased."
+That, at any rate, was satisfactory.  And the more he looked at it the
+less he thought that it need be altogether impossible.  If Lord Bracy
+liked it, and Lady Bracy liked it,--and young Carstairs, as to whose
+liking there seemed to be no reason for any doubt,--he did not see why it
+should be impossible.  As to Mary,--he could not conceive that she should
+make objection if all the others were agreed.  How could she possibly fail
+to love the young man if encouraged to do so?  Suitors who are
+good-looking, rich, of high rank, sweet-tempered, and at the same time
+thoroughly devoted, are not wont to be discarded.  All the difficulty lay
+in the lad's youth.  After all, how many noblemen have done well in the
+world without taking a degree?  Degrees, too, have been taken by married
+men.  And, again, young men have been persistent before now, even to the
+extent of waiting three years.  Long engagements are bad,--no doubt.
+Everybody has always said so.  But a long engagement may be better than
+none at all.
+
+He at last made up his mind that he would speak to Mary; but he determined
+that he would consult his wife first.  Consulting Mrs. Wortle, on his
+part, generally amounted to no more than instructing her.  He found it
+sometimes necessary to talk her over, as he had done in that matter of
+visiting Mrs. Peacocke; but when he set himself to work he rarely failed.
+She had nowhere else to go for a certain foundation and support.
+Therefore he hardly doubted much when he began his operation about this
+suggested engagement.
+
+"I have got that letter this morning from Lord Bracy," he said, handing
+her the document.
+
+"Oh dear!  Has he heard about Carstairs?"
+
+"You had better read it."
+
+"He has told it all," she exclaimed, when she had finished the first
+sentence.
+
+"He has told it all, certainly.  But you had better read the letter
+through."
+
+Then she seated herself and read it, almost trembling, however, as she
+went on with it.  "Oh dear;--that is very nice what he says about you and
+Mary."
+
+"It is all very nice as far as that goes.  There is no reason why it
+should not be nice."
+
+"It might have made him so angry!"
+
+"Then he would have been very unreasonable."
+
+"He acknowledges that Mary did not encourage him."
+
+"Of course she did not encourage him.  He would have been very unlike a
+gentleman had he thought so.  But in truth, my dear, it is a very good
+letter.  Of course there are difficulties."
+
+"Oh;--it is impossible!"
+
+"I do not see that at all.  It must rest very much with him, no
+doubt;--with Carstairs; and I do not like to think that our girl's
+happiness should depend on any young man's constancy.  But such dangers
+have to be encountered.  You and I were engaged for three years before we
+were married, and we did not find it so very bad."
+
+"It was very good.  Oh, I was so happy at the time."
+
+"Happier than you've been since?"
+
+"Well; I don't know.  It was very nice to know that you were my lover."
+
+"Why shouldn't Mary think it very nice to have a lover?"
+
+"But I knew that you would be true."
+
+"Why shouldn't Carstairs be true?"
+
+"Remember he is so young.  You were in orders."
+
+"I don't know that I was at all more likely to be true on that account.  A
+clergyman can jilt a girl just as well as another.  It depends on the
+nature of the man."
+
+"And you were so good."
+
+"I never came across a better youth than Carstairs.  You see what his
+father says about his having a will of his own.  When a young man shows a
+purpose of that kind he generally sticks to it."
+
+The upshot of it all was, that Mary was to be told, and that her father
+was to tell her.
+
+"Yes, papa, he did come," she said.  "I told mamma all about me."
+
+"And she told me, of course.  You did what was quite right, and I should
+not have thought it necessary to speak to you had not Lord Bracy written
+to me."
+
+"Lord Bracy has written!" said Mary.  It seemed to her, as it had done to
+her mother, that Lord Bracy must have written angrily; but though she
+thought so, she plucked up her spirit gallantly, telling herself that
+though Lord Bracy might be angry with his own son, he could have no cause
+to be displeased with her.
+
+"Yes; I have a letter, which you shall read.  The young man seems to have
+been very much in earnest."
+
+"I don't know," said Mary, with some little exultation at her heart.
+
+"It seems but the other day that he was a boy, and now he has become
+suddenly a man."  To this Mary said nothing; but she also had come to the
+conclusion that, in this respect, Lord Carstairs had lately changed,--very
+much for the better.  "Do you like him, Mary?"
+
+"Like him, papa?"
+
+"Well, my darling; how am I to put it?  He is so much in earnest that he
+has got his father to write to me.  He was coming over himself again
+before he went to Oxford; but he told his father what he was going to do,
+and the Earl stopped him.  There's the letter, and you may read it."
+
+Mary read the letter, taking herself apart to a corner of the room, and
+seemed to her father to take a long time in reading it.  But there was
+very much on which she was called upon to make up her mind during those
+few minutes.  Up to the present time,--up to the moment in which her
+father had now summoned her into his study, she had resolved that it was
+"impossible."  She had become so clear on the subject that she would not
+ask herself the question whether she could love the young man.  Would it
+not be wrong to love the young man?  Would it not be a longing for the top
+brick of the chimney, which she ought to know was out of her reach?  So
+she had decided it, and had therefore already taught herself to regard the
+declaration made to her as the ebullition of a young man's folly.  But not
+the less had she known how great had been the thing suggested to her,--how
+excellent was this top brick of the chimney; and as to the young man
+himself, she could not but feel that, had matters been different, she
+might have loved him.  Now there had come a sudden change; but she did not
+at all know how far she might go to meet the change, nor what the change
+altogether meant.  She had been made sure by her father's question that he
+had taught himself to hope.  He would not have asked her whether she liked
+him,--would not, at any rate, have asked that question in that voice,--had
+he not been prepared to be good to her had she answered in the
+affirmative.  But then this matter did not depend upon her father's
+wishes,--or even on her father's judgment.  It was necessary that, before
+she said another word, she should find out what Lord Bracy said about it.
+There she had Lord Bracy's letter in her hand, but her mind was so
+disturbed that she hardly knew how to read it aright at the spur of the
+moment.
+
+"You understand what he says, Mary?"
+
+"I think so, papa."
+
+"It is a very kind letter."
+
+"Very kind indeed.  I should have thought that he would not have liked it
+at all."
+
+"He makes no objection of that kind.  To tell the truth, Mary, I should
+have thought it unreasonable had he done so.  A gentleman can do no better
+than marry a lady.  And though it is much to be a nobleman, it is more to
+be a gentleman."
+
+"Some people think so much of it.  And then his having been here as a
+pupil!  I was very sorry when he spoke to me."
+
+"All that is past and gone.  The danger is that such an engagement would
+be long."
+
+"Very long."
+
+"You would be afraid of that, Mary?"  Mary felt that this was hard upon
+her, and unfair.  Were she to say that the danger of a long engagement did
+not seem to her to be very terrible, she would at once be giving up
+everything.  She would have declared then that she did love the young man;
+or, at any rate, that she intended to do so.  She would have succumbed at
+the first hint that such succumbing was possible to her.  And yet she had
+not known that she was very much afraid of a long engagement.  She would,
+she thought, have been much more afraid had a speedy marriage been
+proposed to her.  Upon the whole, she did not know whether it would not be
+nice to go on knowing that the young man loved her, and to rest secure on
+her faith in him.  She was sure of this,--that the reading of Lord Bracy's
+letter had in some way made her happy, though she was unwilling at once to
+express her happiness to her father.  She was quite sure that she could
+make no immediate reply to that question, whether she was afraid of a long
+engagement.  "I must answer Lord Bracy's letter, you know," said the
+Doctor.
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"And what shall I say to him?"
+
+"I don't know, papa."
+
+"And yet you must tell me what to say, my darling."
+
+"Must I, papa?"
+
+"Certainly!  Who else can tell me?  But I will not answer it to-day.  I
+will put it off till Monday."  It was Saturday morning on which the letter
+was being discussed,--a day of which a considerable portion was generally
+appropriated to the preparation of a sermon.  "In the mean time you had
+better talk to mamma; and on Monday we will settle what is to be said to
+Lord Bracy."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+AT CHICAGO.
+
+MR. PEACOCKE went on alone to San Francisco from the Ogden Junction, and
+there obtained full information on the matter which had brought him upon
+this long and disagreeable journey.  He had no difficulty in obtaining the
+evidence which he required.  He had not been twenty-four hours in the
+place before he was, in truth, standing on the stone which had been placed
+over the body of Ferdinand Lefroy, as he had declared to Robert Lefroy
+that he would stand before he would be satisfied.  On the stone was cut
+simply the names, Ferdinand Lefroy of Kilbrack, Louisiana; and to these
+were added the dates of the days on which the man had been born and on
+which he died.  Of this stone he had a photograph made, of which he took
+copies with him; and he obtained also from the minister who had buried the
+body and from the custodian who had charge of the cemetery certificates of
+the interment.  Armed with these he could no longer doubt himself, or
+suppose that others would doubt, that Ferdinand Lefroy was dead.
+
+Having thus perfected his object, and feeling but little interest in a
+town to which he had been brought by such painful circumstances, he turned
+round, and on the second day after his arrival, again started for Chicago.
+Had it been possible, he would fain have avoided any further meeting with
+Robert Lefroy.  Short as had been his stay at San Francisco he had learnt
+that Robert, after his brother's death, had been concerned in buying
+mining shares and paying for them with forged notes.  It was not supposed
+that he himself had been engaged in the forgery, but that he had come into
+the city with men who had been employed for years on this operation, and
+had bought shares and endeavoured to sell them on the following day.  He
+had, however, managed to leave the place before the police had got hold of
+him, and had escaped, so that no one had been able to say at what station
+he had got upon the railway.  Nor did any one in San Francisco know where
+Robert Lefroy was now to be found.  His companions had been taken, tried,
+and convicted, and were now in the State prison,--where also would Robert
+Lefroy soon be if any of the officers of the State could get hold of him.
+Luckily Mr. Peacocke had said little or nothing of the man in making his
+own inquiries.  Much as he had hated and dreaded the man; much as he had
+suffered from his companionship,--good reason as he had to dislike the
+whole family,--he felt himself bound by their late companionship not to
+betray him.  The man had assisted Mr. Peacocke simply for money; but still
+he had assisted him.  Mr. Peacocke therefore held his peace and said
+nothing.  But he would have been thankful to have been able to send the
+money that was now due to him without having again to see him.  That,
+however, was impossible.
+
+On reaching Chicago he went to an hotel far removed from that which Lefroy
+had designated.  Lefroy had explained to him something of the geography of
+the town, and had explained that for himself he preferred a "modest, quiet
+hotel."  The modest, quiet hotel was called Mrs. Jones's boarding-house,
+and was in one of the suburbs far from the main street.  "You needn't say
+as you're coming to me," Lefroy had said to him; "nor need you let on as
+you know anything of Mrs. Jones at all.  People are so curious; and it may
+be that a gentleman sometimes likes to lie _perdu_."  Mr. Peacocke,
+although he had but small sympathy for the taste of a gentleman who likes
+to lie _perdu_, nevertheless did as he was bid, and found his way to Mrs.
+Jones's boarding-house without telling any one whither he was going.
+
+Before he started he prepared himself with a thousand dollars in
+bank-notes, feeling that this wretched man had earned them in accordance
+with their compact.  His only desire now was to hand over the money as
+quickly as possible, and to hurry away out of Chicago.  He felt as though
+he himself were almost guilty of some crime in having to deal with this
+man, in having to give him money secretly, and in carrying out to the end
+an arrangement of which no one else was to know the details.  How would it
+be with him if the police of Chicago should come upon him as a friend, and
+probably an accomplice, of one who was "wanted" on account of forgery at
+San Francisco?  But he had no help for himself, and at Mrs. Jones's he
+found his wife's brother-in-law seated in the bar of the
+public-house,--that everlasting resort for American loungers,--with a
+cigar as usual stuck in his mouth, loafing away his time as only American
+frequenters of such establishments know how to do.  In England such a man
+would probably be found in such a place with a glass of some alcoholic
+mixture beside him, but such is never the case with an American.  If he
+wants a drink he goes to the bar and takes it standing,--will perhaps take
+two or three, one after another; but when he has settled himself down to
+loafe, he satisfies himself with chewing a cigar, and covering a circle
+around him with the results.  With this amusement he will remain contented
+hour after hour;--nay, throughout the entire day if no harder work be
+demanded of him.  So was Robert Lefroy found now.  When Peacocke entered
+the hall or room the man did not rise from his chair, but accosted him as
+though they had parted only an hour since.  "So, old fellow, you've got
+back all alive."
+
+"I have reached this place at any rate."
+
+"Well; that's getting back, ain't it?"
+
+"I have come back from San Francisco."
+
+"H'sh!" exclaimed Lefroy, looking round the room, in which, however, there
+was no one but themselves.  "You needn't tell everybody where you've
+been."
+
+"I have nothing to conceal."
+
+"That is more than anybody knows of himself.  It's a good maxim to keep
+your own affairs quiet till they're wanted.  In this country everybody is
+spry enough to learn all about everything.  I never see any good in
+letting them know without a reason.  Well;--what did you do when you got
+there?"
+
+"It was all as you told me."
+
+"Didn't I say so?  What was the good of bringing me all this way, when, if
+you'd only believed me, you might have saved me the trouble.  Ain't I to
+be paid for that?"
+
+"You are to be paid.  I have come here to pay you."
+
+"That's what you owe for the knowledge.  But for coming?  Ain't I to be
+paid extra for the journey?"
+
+"You are to have a thousand dollars."
+
+"H'sh!--you speak of money as though every one has a business to know that
+you have got your pockets full.  What's a thousand dollars, seeing all
+that I have done for you!"
+
+"It's all that you're going to get.  It's all, indeed, that I have got to
+give you."
+
+"Gammon."
+
+"It's all, at any rate, that you're going to get.  Will you have it now?"
+
+"You found the tomb, did you?"
+
+"Yes; I found the tomb.  Here is a photograph of it.  You can keep a copy
+if you like it."
+
+"What do I want of a copy," said the man, taking the photograph in his
+hand.  "He was always more trouble than he was worth,--was Ferdy.  It's a
+pity she didn't marry me.  I'd 've made a woman of her."  Peacocke
+shuddered as he heard this, but he said nothing.  "You may as well give us
+the picter;--it'll do to hang up somewhere if ever I have a room of my
+own.  How plain it is.  Ferdinand Lefroy,--of Kilbrack!  Kilbrack indeed!
+It's little either of us was the better for Kilbrack.  Some of them
+psalm-singing rogues from New England has it now;--or perhaps a right-down
+nigger.  I shouldn't wonder.  One of our own lot, maybe!  Oh; that's the
+money, is it?--A thousand dollars; all that I'm to have for coming to
+England and telling you, and bringing you back, and showing you where you
+could get this pretty picter made."  Then he took the money, a thick roll
+of notes, and crammed them into his pocket.
+
+"You'd better count them."
+
+"It ain't worth the while with such a trifle as that."
+
+"Let me count them then."
+
+"You'll never have that plunder in your fists again, my fine fellow."
+
+"I do not want it."
+
+"And now about my expenses out to England, on purpose to tell you all
+this.  You can go and make her your wife now,--or can leave her, just as
+you please.  You couldn't have done neither if I hadn't gone out to you."
+
+"You have got what was promised."
+
+"But my expenses,--going out?"
+
+"I have promised you nothing for your expenses going out,--and will pay
+you nothing."
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"Not a dollar more."
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"Certainly not.  I do not suppose that you expect it for a moment,
+although you are so persistent in asking for it."
+
+"And you think you've got the better of me, do you?  You think you've
+carried me along with you, just to do your bidding and take whatever you
+please to give me?  That's your idea of me?"
+
+"There was a clear bargain between us.  I have not got the better of you
+at all."
+
+"I rather think not, Peacocke.  I rather think not.  You'll have to get up
+earlier before you get the better of Robert Lefroy.  You don't expect to
+get this money back again,--do you?"
+
+"Certainly not,--any more than I should expect a pound of meat out of a
+dog's jaw."  Mr. Peacocke, as he said this, was waxing angry.
+
+"I don't suppose you do;--but you expected that I was to earn it by doing
+your bidding;--didn't you?"
+
+"And you have."
+
+"Yes, I have; but how?  You never heard of my cousin, did you;--Ferdinand
+Lefroy of Kilbrack, Louisiana?"
+
+"Heard of whom?"
+
+"My cousin; Ferdinand Lefroy.  He was very well known in his own State,
+and in California too, till he died.  He was a good fellow, but given to
+drink.  We used to tell him that if he would marry it would be better for
+him;--but he never would;--he never did."  Robert Lefroy as he said this
+put his left hand into his trousers-pocket over the notes which he had
+placed there, and drew a small revolver out of his pocket with the other
+hand.  "I am better prepared now," he said, "than when you had your
+six-shooter under your pillow at Leavenworth."
+
+"I do not believe a word of it.  It's a lie," said Peacocke.
+
+"Very well.  You're a chap that's fond of travelling, and have got plenty
+of money.  You'd better go down to Louisiana and make your way straight
+from New Orleans to Kilbrack.  It ain't above forty miles to the
+south-west, and there's a rail goes within fifteen miles of it.  You'll
+learn there all about Ferdinand Lefroy as was our cousin,--him as never
+got married up to the day he died of drink and was buried at San
+Francisco.  They'll be very glad, I shouldn't wonder, to see that pretty
+little picter of yours, because they was always uncommon fond of cousin
+Ferdy at Kilbrack.  And I'll tell you what; you'll be sure to come across
+my brother Ferdy in them parts, and can tell him how you've seen me.  You
+can give him all the latest news, too, about his own wife.  He'll be glad
+to hear about her, poor woman."  Mr. Peacocke listened to this without
+saying a word since that last exclamation of his.  It might be true.  Why
+should it not be true?  If in truth there had been these two cousins of
+the same name, what could be more likely than that his money should be
+lured out of him by such a fraud as this?  But yet,--yet, as he came to
+think of it all, it could not be true.  The chance of carrying such a
+scheme to a successful issue would have been too small to induce the man
+to act upon it from the day of his first appearance at Bowick.  Nor was it
+probable that there should have been another Ferdinand Lefroy unknown to
+his wife; and the existence of such a one, if known to his wife, would
+certainly have been made known to him.
+
+"It's a lie," said he, "from beginning to end."
+
+"Very well; very well.  I'll take care to make the truth known by letter
+to Dr. Wortle and the Bishop and all them pious swells over there.  To
+think that such a chap as you, a minister of the gospel, living with
+another man's wife and looking as though butter wouldn't melt in your
+mouth!  I tell you what; I've got a little money in my pocket now, and I
+don't mind going over to England again and explaining the whole truth to
+the Bishop myself.  I could make him understand how that photograph ain't
+worth nothing, and how I explained to you myself as the lady's righteous
+husband is all alive, keeping house on his own property down in Louisiana.
+Do you think we Lefroys hadn't any place beside Kilbrack among us?"
+
+"Certainly you are a liar," said Peacocke.
+
+"Very well.  Prove it."
+
+"Did you not tell me that your brother was buried at San Francisco?"
+
+"Oh, as for that, that don't matter.  It don't count for much whether I
+told a crammer or not.  That picter counts for nothing.  It ain't my word
+you were going on as evidence.  You is able to prove that Ferdy Lefroy was
+buried at 'Frisco.  True enough.  I buried him.  I can prove that.  And I
+would never have treated you this way, and not have said a word as to how
+the dead man was only a cousin, if you'd treated me civil over there in
+England.  But you didn't."
+
+"I am going to treat you worse now," said Peacocke, looking him in the
+face.
+
+"What are you going to do now?  It's I that have the revolver this time."
+As he said this he turned the weapon round in his hand.
+
+"I don't want to shoot you,--nor yet to frighten you, as I did in the
+bed-room at Leavenworth.  Not but what I have a pistol too."  And he slowly
+drew his out of his pocket.  At this moment two men sauntered in and took
+their places in the further corner of the room.  "I don't think there is
+to be any shooting between us."
+
+"There may," said Lefroy.
+
+"The police would have you."
+
+"So they would--for a time.  What does that matter to me?  Isn't a fellow
+to protect himself when a fellow like you comes to him armed?"
+
+"But they would soon know that you are the swindler who escaped from San
+Francisco eighteen months ago.  Do you think it wouldn't be found out that
+it was you who paid for the shares in forged notes?"
+
+"I never did.  That's one of your lies."
+
+"Very well.  Now you know what I know; and you had better tell me over
+again who it is that lies buried under the stone that's been photographed
+there."
+
+"What are you men doing with them pistols?" said one of the strangers,
+walking across the room, and standing over the backs of their chairs.
+
+"We are alooking at 'em," said Lefroy.
+
+"If you're agoing to do anything of that kind you'd better go and do it
+elsewhere," said the stranger.
+
+"Just so," said Lefroy.  "That's what I was thinking myself."
+
+"But we are not going to do anything," said Mr. Peacocke.  "I have not the
+slightest idea of shooting the gentleman; and he has just as little of
+shooting me."
+
+"Then what do you sit with 'em out in your hands in that fashion for?"
+said the stranger.  "It's a decent widow woman as keeps this house, and I
+won't see her set upon.  Put 'em up."  Whereupon Lefroy did return his
+pistol to his pocket,--upon which Mr. Peacocke did the same.  Then the
+stranger slowly walked back to his seat at the other side of the room.
+
+"So they told you that lie; did they,--at 'Frisco?" asked Lefroy.
+
+"That was what I heard over there when I was inquiring about your
+brother's death."
+
+"You'd believe anything if you'd believe that."
+
+"I'd believe anything if I'd believe in your cousin."  Upon this Lefroy
+laughed, but made no further allusion to the romance which he had craftily
+invented on the spur of the moment.  After that the two men sat without a
+word between them for a quarter of an hour, when the Englishman got up to
+take his leave.  "Our business is over now," he said, "and I will bid you
+good-bye."
+
+"I'll tell you what I'm athinking," said Lefroy.  Mr. Peacocke stood with
+his hand ready for a final adieu, but he said nothing.  "I've half a mind
+to go back with you to England.  There ain't nothing to keep me here."
+
+"What could you do there?"
+
+"I'd be evidence for you, as to Ferdy's death, you know."
+
+"I have evidence.  I do not want you."
+
+"I'll go, nevertheless."
+
+"And spend all your money on the journey."
+
+"You'd help;--wouldn't you now?"
+
+"Not a dollar," said Peacocke, turning away and leaving the room.  As he
+did so he heard the wretch laughing loud at the excellence of his own
+joke.
+
+Before he made his journey back again to England he only once more saw
+Robert Lefroy.  As he was seating himself in the railway car that was to
+take him to Buffalo the man came up to him with an affected look of
+solicitude.  "Peacocke," he said, "there was only nine hundred dollars in
+that roll."
+
+"There were a thousand.  I counted them half-an-hour before I handed them
+to you."
+
+"There was only nine hundred when I got 'em."
+
+"There were all that you will get.  What kind of notes were they you had
+when you paid for the shares at 'Frisco?"  This question he asked out loud,
+before all the passengers.  Then Robert Lefroy left the car, and Mr.
+Peacocke never saw him or heard from him again.
+
+
+
+Conclusion.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE DOCTOR'S ANSWER.
+
+WHEN the Monday came there was much to be done and to be thought of at
+Bowick.  Mrs. Peacocke on that day received a letter from San Francisco,
+giving her all the details of the evidence that her husband had obtained,
+and enclosing a copy of the photograph.  There was now no reason why she
+should not become the true and honest wife of the man whom she had all
+along regarded as her husband in the sight of God.  The writer declared
+that he would so quickly follow his letter that he might be expected home
+within a week, or, at the longest, ten days, from the date at which she
+would receive it.  Immediately on his arrival at Liverpool, he would, of
+course, give her notice by telegraph.
+
+When this letter reached her, she at once sent a message across to Mrs.
+Wortle.  Would Mrs. Wortle kindly come and see her?  Mrs. Wortle was, of
+course, bound to do as she was asked, and started at once.  But she was,
+in truth, but little able to give counsel on any subject outside the one
+which was at the moment nearest to her heart.  At one o'clock, when the
+boys went to their dinner, Mary was to instruct her father as to the
+purport of the letter which was to be sent to Lord Bracy,--and Mary had
+not as yet come to any decision.  She could not go to her father for
+aid;--she could not, at any rate, go to him until the appointed hour
+should come; and she was, therefore, entirely thrown upon her mother.  Had
+she been old enough to understand the effect and the power of character,
+she would have known that, at the last moment, her father would certainly
+decide for her,--and had her experience of the world been greater, she
+might have been quite sure that her father would decide in her favour.
+But as it was, she was quivering and shaking in the dark, leaning on her
+mother's very inefficient aid, nearly overcome with the feeling that by
+one o'clock she must be ready to say something quite decided.
+
+And in the midst of this her mother was taken away from her, just at ten
+o'clock.  There was not, in truth, much that the two ladies could say to
+each other.  Mrs. Peacocke felt it to be necessary to let the Doctor know
+that Mr. Peacocke would be back almost at once, and took this means of
+doing so.  "In a week!" said Mrs. Wortle, as though painfully surprised by
+the suddenness of the coming arrival.
+
+"In a week or ten days.  He was to follow his letter as quickly as
+possible from San Francisco."
+
+"And he has found it all out?"
+
+"Yes; he has learned everything, I think.  Look at this!"  And Mrs.
+Peacocke handed to her friend the photograph of the tombstone.
+
+"Dear me!" said Mrs. Wortle.  "Ferdinand Lefroy!  And this was his grave?"
+
+"That is his grave," said Mrs. Peacocke, turning her face away.
+
+"It is very sad; very sad indeed;--but you had to learn it, you know."
+
+"It will not be sad for him, I hope," said Mrs. Peacocke.  "In all this, I
+endeavour to think of him rather than of myself.  When I am forced to
+think of myself, it seems to me that my life has been so blighted and
+destroyed that it must be indifferent what happens to me now.  What has
+happened to me has been so bad that I can hardly be injured further.  But
+if there can be a good time coming for him,--something at least of relief,
+something perhaps of comfort,--then I shall be satisfied."
+
+"Why should there not be comfort for you both?"
+
+"I am almost as dead to hope as I am to shame.  Some year or two ago I
+should have thought it impossible to bear the eyes of people looking at
+me, as though my life had been sinful and impure.  I seem now to care
+nothing for all that.  I can look them back again with bold eyes and a
+brazen face, and tell them that their hardness is at any rate as bad as my
+impurity."
+
+"We have not looked at you like that," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"No; and therefore I send to you in my trouble, and tell you all this.
+The strangest thing of all to me is that I should have come across one man
+so generous as your husband, and one woman so soft-hearted as yourself."
+There was nothing further to be said then.  Mrs. Wortle was instructed to
+tell her husband that Mr. Peacocke was to be expected in a week or ten
+days, and then hurried back to give what assistance she could in the much
+more important difficulties of her own daughter.
+
+Of course they were much more important to her.  Was her girl to become
+the wife of a young lord,--to be a future countess?  Was she destined to
+be the mother-in-law of an earl?  Of course this was much more important
+to her.  And then through it all,--being as she was a dear, good,
+Christian, motherly woman,--she was well aware that there was something,
+in truth, much more important even than that.  Though she thought much of
+the earl-ship, and the countess-ship, and the great revenue, and the big
+house at Carstairs, and the fine park with its magnificent avenues, and
+the carriage in which her daughter would be rolled about to London
+parties, and the diamonds which she would wear when she should be
+presented to the Queen as the bride of the young Lord Carstairs, yet she
+knew very well that she ought not in such an emergency as the present to
+think of these things as being of primary importance.  What would tend
+most to her girl's happiness,--and welfare in this world and the next?  It
+was of that she ought to think,--of that only.  If some answer were now
+returned to Lord Bracy, giving his lordship to understand that they, the
+Wortles, were anxious to encourage the idea, then in fact her girl would
+be tied to an engagement whether the young lord should hold himself to be
+so tied or no!  And how would it be with her girl if the engagement should
+be allowed to run on in a doubtful way for years, and then be dropped by
+reason of the young man's indifference?  How would it be with her if,
+after perhaps three or four years, a letter should come saying that the
+young lord had changed his mind, and had engaged himself to some nobler
+bride?  Was it not her duty, as a mother, to save her child from the too
+probable occurrence of some crushing grief such as this?  All of it was
+clear to her mind;--but then it was clear also that, if this opportunity
+of greatness were thrown away, no such chance in all probability would
+ever come again.  Thus she was so tossed to and fro between a prospect of
+glorious prosperity for her child on one side, and the fear of terrible
+misfortune for her child on the other, that she was altogether unable to
+give any salutary advice.  She, at any rate, ought to have known that her
+advice would at last be of no importance.  Her experience ought to have
+told her that the Doctor would certainly settle the matter himself.  Had
+it been her own happiness that was in question, her own conduct, her own
+greatness, she would not have dreamed of having an opinion of her own.
+She would have consulted the Doctor, and simply have done as he directed.
+But all this was for her child, and in a vague, vacillating way she felt
+that for her child she ought to be ready with counsel of her own.
+
+"Mamma," said Mary, when her mother came back from Mrs. Peacocke, "what am
+I to say when he sends for me?"
+
+"If you think that you can love him, my dear----"
+
+"Oh, mamma, you shouldn't ask me!"
+
+"My dear!"
+
+"I do like him,--very much."
+
+"If so----"
+
+"But I never thought of it before;--and then, if he,--if he----"
+
+"If he what, my dear?"
+
+"If he were to change his mind?"
+
+"Ah, yes;--there it is.  It isn't as though you could be married in three
+months' time."
+
+"Oh, mamma!  I shouldn't like that at all."
+
+"Or even in six."
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Of course he is very young."
+
+"Yes, mamma."
+
+"And when a young man is so very young, I suppose he doesn't quite know
+his own mind."
+
+"No, mamma.  But----"
+
+"Well, my dear."
+
+"His father says that he has got--such a strong will of his own," said
+poor Mary, who was anxious, unconsciously anxious, to put in a good word
+on her own side of the question, without making her own desire too
+visible.
+
+"He always had that.  When there was any game to be played, he always
+liked to have his own way.  But then men like that are just as likely to
+change as others."
+
+"Are they, mamma?"
+
+"But I do think that he is a lad of very high principle."
+
+"Papa has always said that of him."
+
+"And of fine generous feeling.  He would not change like a weather-cock."
+
+"If you think he would change at all, I would
+rather,--rather,--rather----.  Oh, mamma, why did you tell me?"
+
+"My darling, my child, my angel!  What am I to tell you?  I do think of
+all the young men I ever knew he is the nicest, and the sweetest, and the
+most thoroughly good and affectionate."
+
+"Oh, mamma, do you?" said Mary, rushing at her mother and kissing her and
+embracing her.
+
+"But if there were to be no regular engagement, and you were to let him
+have your heart,--and then things were to go wrong!"
+
+Mary left the embracings, gave up the kissings, and seated herself on the
+sofa alone.  In this way the morning was passed;--and when Mary was
+summoned to her father's study, the mother and daughter had not arrived
+between them at any decision.
+
+"Well, my dear," said the Doctor, smiling, "what am I to say to the Earl?"
+
+"Must you write to-day, papa?"
+
+"I think so.  His letter is one that should not be left longer unanswered.
+Were we to do so, he would only think that we didn't know what to say for
+ourselves."
+
+"Would he, papa?"
+
+"He would fancy that we are half-ashamed to accept what has been offered
+to us, and yet anxious to take it."
+
+"I am not ashamed of anything."
+
+"No, my dear; you have no reason."
+
+"Nor have you, papa."
+
+"Nor have I.  That is quite true.  I have never been wont to be ashamed of
+myself;--nor do I think that you ever will have cause to be ashamed of
+yourself.  Therefore, why should we hesitate?  Shall I help you, my
+darling, in coming to a decision on the matter?"
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"If I can understand your heart on this matter, it has never as yet been
+given to this young man."
+
+"No, papa."  This Mary said not altogether with that complete power of
+asseveration which the negative is sometimes made to bear.
+
+"But there must be a beginning to such things.  A man throws himself into
+it headlong,--as my Lord Carstairs seems to have done.  At least all the
+best young men do."  Mary at this point felt a great longing to get up and
+kiss her father; but she restrained herself.  "A young woman, on the other
+hand, if she is such as I think you are, waits till she is asked.  Then it
+has to begin."  The Doctor, as he said this, smiled his sweetest smile.
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"And when it has begun, she does not like to blurt it out at once, even to
+her loving old father."
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"That's about it, isn't it?  Haven't I hit it off?"  He paused, as though
+for a reply, but she was not as yet able to make him any.  "Come here, my
+dear."  She came and stood by him, so that he could put his arm round her
+waist.  "If it be as I suppose, you are better disposed to this young man
+than you are likely to be to any other, just at present."
+
+"Oh yes, papa."
+
+"To all others you are quite indifferent?"
+
+"Yes,--indeed, papa."
+
+"I am sure you are.  But not quite indifferent to this one?  Give me a
+kiss, my darling, and I will take that for your speech."  Then she kissed
+him,--giving him her very best kiss.  "And now, my child, what shall I say
+to the Earl?"
+
+"I don't know, papa."
+
+"Nor do I, quite.  I never do know what to say till I've got the pen in my
+hand.  But you'll commission me to write as I may think best?"
+
+"Oh yes, papa."
+
+"And I may presume that I know your mind?"
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"Very well.  Then you had better leave me, so that I can go to work with
+the paper straight before me, and my pen fixed in my fingers.  I can never
+begin to think till I find myself in that position."  Then she left him,
+and went back to her mother.
+
+"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"He is going to write to Lord Bracy."
+
+"But what does he mean to say?"
+
+"I don't know at all, mamma."
+
+"Not know!"
+
+"I think he means to tell Lord Bracy that he has got no objection."
+
+Then Mrs. Wortle was sure that the Doctor meant to face all the dangers,
+and that therefore it would behove her to face them also.
+
+The Doctor, when he was left alone, sat a while thinking of the matter
+before he put himself into the position fitted for composition which he
+had described to his daughter.  He acknowledged to himself that there was
+a difficulty in making a fit reply to the letter which he had to answer.
+When his mind was set on sending an indignant epistle to the Bishop, the
+words flew from him like lightning out of the thunder-clouds.  But now he
+had to think much of it before he could make any light to come which
+should not bear a different colour from that which he intended.  "Of
+course such a marriage would suit my child, and would suit me," he wished
+to say;--"not only, or not chiefly, because your son is a nobleman, and
+will be an earl and a man of great property.  That goes a long way with
+us.  We are too true to deny it.  We hate humbug, and want you to know
+simply the truth about us.  The title and the money go far,--but not half
+so far as the opinion which we entertain of the young man's own good
+gifts.  I would not give my girl to the greatest and richest nobleman
+under the British Crown, if I did not think that he would love her and be
+good to her, and treat her as a husband should treat his wife.  But
+believing this young man to have good gifts such as these, and a fine
+disposition, I am willing, on my girl's behalf,--and she also is
+willing,--to encounter the acknowledged danger of a long engagement in the
+hope of realising all the good things which would, if things went
+fortunately, thus come within her reach."  This was what he wanted to say
+to the Earl, but he found it very difficult to say it in language that
+should be natural.
+
+
+"MY DEAR LORD BRACY,--When I learned, through Mary's mother, that
+Carstairs had been here in our absence and made a declaration of love to
+our girl, I was, I must confess, annoyed.  I felt, in the first place,
+that he was too young to have taken in hand such a business as that; and,
+in the next, that you might not unnaturally have been angry that your son,
+who had come here simply for tuition, should have fallen into a matter of
+love.  I imagine that you will understand exactly what were my feelings.
+There was, however, nothing to be said about it.  The evil, so far as it
+was an evil, had been done, and Carstairs was going away to Oxford, where,
+possibly, he might forget the whole affair.  I did not, at any rate, think
+it necessary to make a complaint to you of his coming.
+
+"To all this your letter has given altogether a different aspect.  I think
+that I am as little likely as another to spend my time or thoughts in
+looking for external advantages, but I am as much alive as another to the
+great honour to myself and advantage to my child of the marriage which is
+suggested to her.  I do not know how any more secure prospect of happiness
+could be opened to her than that which such a marriage offers.  I have
+thought myself bound to give her your letter to read because her heart and
+her imagination have naturally been affected by what your son said to her.
+I think I may say of my girl that none sweeter, none more innocent, none
+less likely to be over-anxious for such a prospect could exist.  But her
+heart has been touched; and though she had not dreamt of him but as an
+acquaintance till he came here and told his own tale, and though she then
+altogether declined to entertain his proposal when it was made, now that
+she has learnt so much more through you, she is no longer indifferent.
+This, I think, you will find to be natural.
+
+"I and her mother also are of course alive to the dangers of a long
+engagement, and the more so because your son has still before him a
+considerable portion of his education.  Had he asked advice either of you
+or of me he would of course have been counselled not to think of marriage
+as yet.  But the very passion which has prompted him to take this action
+upon himself shows,--as you yourself say of him,--that he has a stronger
+will than is usual to be found at his years.  As it is so, it is probable
+that he may remain constant to this as to a fixed idea.
+
+"I think you will now understand my mind and Mary's and her mother's."
+Lord Bracy as he read this declared to himself that though the Doctor's
+mind was very clear, Mrs. Wortle, as far as he knew, had no mind in the
+matter at all.  "I would suggest that the affair should remain as it is,
+and that each of the young people should be made to understand that any
+future engagement must depend, not simply on the persistency of one of
+them, but on the joint persistency of the two.
+
+"If, after this, Lady Bracy should be pleased to receive Mary at
+Carstairs, I need not say that Mary will be delighted to make the
+visit.--Believe me, my dear Lord Bracy, yours most faithfully.
+
+"JEFFREY WORTLE."
+
+
+The Earl, when he read this, though there was not a word in it to which he
+could take exception, was not altogether pleased.  "Of course it will be
+an engagement," he said to his wife.
+
+"Of course it will," said the Countess.  "But then Carstairs is so very
+much in earnest.  He would have done it for himself if you hadn't done it
+for him."
+
+"At any rate the Doctor is a gentleman," the Earl said, comforting
+himself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+MR. PEACOCKE'S RETURN.
+
+THE Earl's rejoinder to the Doctor was very short: "So let it be."  There
+was not another word in the body of the letter; but there was appended to
+it a postscript almost equally short; "Lady Bracy will write to Mary and
+settle with her some period for her visit."  And so it came to be
+understood by the Doctor, by Mrs. Wortle, and by Mary herself, that Mary
+was engaged to Lord Carstairs.
+
+The Doctor, having so far arranged the matter, said little or nothing more
+on the subject, but turned his mind at once to that other affair of Mr.
+and Mrs. Peacocke.  It was evident to his wife, who probably alone
+understood the buoyancy of his spirit and its corresponding susceptibility
+to depression, that he at once went about Mr. Peacocke's affairs with
+renewed courage.  Mr. Peacocke should resume his duties as soon as he was
+remarried, and let them see what Mrs. Stantiloup or the Bishop would dare
+to say then!  It was impossible, he thought, that parents would be such
+asses as to suppose that their boys' morals could be affected to evil by
+connection with a man so true, so gallant, and so manly as this.  He did
+not at this time say anything further as to abandoning the school, but
+seemed to imagine that the vacancies would get themselves filled up as in
+the course of nature.  He ate his dinner again as though he liked it, and
+abused the Liberals, and was anxious about the grapes and peaches, as was
+always the case with him when things were going well.  All this, as Mrs.
+Wortle understood, had come to him from the brilliancy of Mary's
+prospects.
+
+But though he held his tongue on the subject, Mrs. Wortle did not.  She
+found it absolutely impossible not to talk of it when she was alone with
+Mary, or alone with the Doctor.  As he counselled her not to make Mary
+think too much about it, she was obliged to hold her peace when both were
+with her; but with either of them alone she was always full of it.  To the
+Doctor she communicated all her fears and all her doubts, showing only too
+plainly that she would be altogether broken-hearted if anything should
+interfere with the grandeur and prosperity which seemed to be partly
+within reach, but not altogether within reach of her darling child.  If
+he, Carstairs, should prove to be a recreant young lord!  If Aristotle and
+Socrates should put love out of his heart!  If those other wicked young
+lords at Christ-Church were to teach him that it was a foolish thing for a
+young lord to become engaged to his tutor's daughter before he had taken
+his degree!  If some better born young lady were to come in his way and
+drive Mary out of his heart!  No more lovely or better girl could be found
+to do so;--of that she was sure.  To the latter assertion the Doctor
+agreed, telling her that, as it was so, she ought to have a stronger trust
+in her daughter's charms,--telling her also, with somewhat sterner voice,
+that she should not allow herself to be so disturbed by the glories of the
+Bracy coronet.  In this there was, I think, some hypocrisy.  Had the
+Doctor been as simple as his wife in showing her own heart, it would
+probably have been found that he was as much set upon the coronet as she.
+
+Then Mrs. Wortle would carry the Doctor's wisdom to her daughter.  "Papa
+says, my dear, that you shouldn't think of it too much."
+
+"I do think of him, mamma.  I do love him now, and of course I think of
+him."
+
+"Of course you do, my dear;--of course you do.  How should you not think
+of him when he is all in all to you?  But papa means that it can hardly be
+called an engagement yet."
+
+"I don't know what it should be called; but of course I love him.  He can
+change it if he likes."
+
+"But you shouldn't think of it, knowing his rank and wealth."
+
+"I never did, mamma; but he is what he is, and I must think of him."
+
+Poor Mrs. Wortle did not know what special advice to give when this
+declaration was made.  To have held her tongue would have been the wisest,
+but that was impossible to her.  Out of the full heart the mouth speaks,
+and her heart was very full of Lord Carstairs and of Carstairs House, and
+of the diamonds which her daughter would certainly be called upon to wear
+before the Queen,--if only that young man would do his duty.
+
+Poor Mary herself probably had the worst of it.  No provision was made
+either for her to see her lover or to write to him.  The only interview
+which had ever taken place between them as lovers was that on which she
+had run by him into the house, leaving him, as the Earl had said, planted
+on the terrace.  She had never been able to whisper one single soft word
+into his ear, to give him even one touch of her fingers in token of her
+affection.  She did not in the least know when she might be allowed to see
+him,--whether it had not been settled among the elders that they were not
+to see each other as real lovers till he should have taken his
+degree,--which would be almost in a future world, so distant seemed the
+time.  It had been already settled that she was to go to Carstairs in the
+middle of November and stay till the middle of December; but it was
+altogether settled that her lover was not to be at Carstairs during the
+time.  He was to be at Oxford then, and would be thinking only of his
+Greek and Latin,--or perhaps amusing himself, in utter forgetfulness that
+he had a heart belonging to him at Bowick Parsonage.  In this way Mary,
+though no doubt she thought the most of it all, had less opportunity of
+talking of it than either her father or her mother.
+
+In the mean time Mr. Peacocke was coming home.  The Doctor, as soon as he
+heard that the day was fixed, or nearly fixed, being then, as has been
+explained, in full good humour with all the world except Mrs. Stantiloup
+and the Bishop, bethought himself as to what steps might best be taken in
+the very delicate matter in which he was called upon to give advice.  He
+had declared at first that they should be married at his own parish
+church; but he felt that there would be difficulties in this.  "She must
+go up to London and meet him there," he said to Mrs. Wortle.  "And he must
+not show himself here till he brings her down as his actual wife."  Then
+there was very much to be done in arranging all this.  And something to be
+done also in making those who had been his friends, and perhaps more in
+making those who had been his enemies, understand exactly how the matter
+stood.  Had no injury been inflicted upon him, as though he had done evil
+to the world in general in befriending Mr. Peacocke, he would have been
+quite willing to pass the matter over in silence among his friends; but as
+it was he could not afford to hide his own light under a bushel.  He was
+being punished almost to the extent of ruin by the cruel injustice which
+had been done him by the evil tongue of Mrs. Stantiloup, and, as he
+thought, by the folly of the Bishop.  He must now let those who had
+concerned themselves know as accurately as he could what he had done in
+the matter, and what had been the effect of his doing.  He wrote a letter,
+therefore, which was not, however, to be posted till after the Peacocke
+marriage had been celebrated, copies of which he prepared with his own
+hand in order that he might send them to the Bishop and to Lady Anne
+Clifford, and to Mr. Talbot and,--not, indeed, to Mrs. Stantiloup, but to
+Mrs. Stantiloup's husband.  There was a copy also made for Mr. Momson,
+though in his heart he despised Mr. Momson thoroughly.  In this letter he
+declared the great respect which he had entertained, since he had first
+known them, both for Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke, and the distress which he had
+felt when Mr. Peacocke had found himself obliged to explain to him the
+facts,--the facts which need not be repeated, because the reader is so
+well acquainted with them.  "Mr. Peacocke," he went on to say, "has since
+been to America, and has found that the man whom he believed to be dead
+when he married his wife, has died since his calamitous reappearance.  Mr.
+Peacocke has seen the man's grave, with the stone on it bearing his name,
+and has brought back with him certificates and evidence as to his burial.
+
+"Under these circumstances, I have no hesitation in re-employing both him
+and his wife; and I think that you will agree that I could not do less.  I
+think you will agree, also, that in the whole transaction I have done
+nothing of which the parent of any boy intrusted to me has a right to
+complain."
+
+Having done this, he went up to London, and made arrangements for having
+the marriage celebrated there as soon as possible after the arrival of Mr.
+Peacocke.  And on his return to Bowick, he went off to Mr. Puddicombe with
+a copy of his letter in his pocket.  He had not addressed a copy to his
+friend, nor had he intended that one should be sent to him.  Mr.
+Puddicombe had not interfered in regard to the boys, and had, on the
+whole, shown himself to be a true friend.  There was no need for him to
+advocate his cause to Mr. Puddicombe.  But it was right, he thought, that
+that gentleman should know what he did; and it might be that he hoped that
+he would at length obtain some praise from Mr. Puddicombe.  But Mr.
+Puddicombe did not like the letter.  "It does not tell the truth," he
+said.
+
+"Not the truth!"
+
+"Not the whole truth."
+
+"As how!  Where have I concealed anything?"
+
+"If I understand the question rightly, they who have thought proper to
+take their children away from your school because of Mr. Peacocke, have
+done so because that gentleman continued to live with that lady when they
+both knew that they were not man and wife."
+
+"That wasn't my doing."
+
+"You condoned it.  I am not condemning you.  You condoned it, and now you
+defend yourself in this letter.  But in your defence you do not really
+touch the offence as to which you are, according to your own showing,
+accused.  In telling the whole story, you should say; 'They did live
+together though they were not married;--and, under all the circumstances,
+I did not think that they were on that account unfit to be left in charge
+of my boys."'
+
+"But I sent him away immediately,--to America."
+
+"You allowed the lady to remain."
+
+"Then what would you have me say?" demanded the Doctor.
+
+"Nothing," said Mr. Puddicombe;--"not a word.  Live it down in silence.
+There will be those, like myself, who, though they could not dare to say
+that in morals you were strictly correct, will love you the better for
+what you did."  The Doctor turned his face towards the dry, hard-looking
+man and showed that there was a tear in each of his eyes.  "There are few
+of us not so infirm as sometimes to love best that which is not best.  But
+when a man is asked a downright question, he is bound to answer the
+truth."
+
+"You would say nothing in your own defence."
+
+"Not a word.  You know the French proverb: 'Who excuses himself is his own
+accuser.' The truth generally makes its way.  As far as I can see, a
+slander never lives long."
+
+"Ten of my boys are gone!" said the Doctor, who had not hitherto spoken a
+word of this to any one out of his own family;--"ten out of twenty."
+
+"That will only be a temporary loss."
+
+"That is nothing,--nothing.  It is the idea that the school should be
+failing."
+
+"They will come again.  I do not believe that that letter would bring a
+boy.  I am almost inclined to say, Dr. Wortle, that a man should never
+defend himself."
+
+"He should never have to defend himself."
+
+"It is much the same thing.  But I'll tell you what I'll do, Dr.
+Wortle,--if it will suit your plans.  I will go up with you and will
+assist at the marriage.  I do not for a moment think that you will require
+any countenance, or that if you did, that I could give it you."
+
+"No man that I know so efficiently."
+
+"But it may be that Mr. Peacocke will like to find that the clergymen from
+his neighbourhood are standing with him."  And so it was settled, that when
+the day should come on which the Doctor would take Mrs. Peacocke up with
+him to London, Mr. Puddicombe was to accompany them.
+
+The Doctor when he left Mr. Puddicombe's parsonage had by no means pledged
+himself not to send the letters.  When a man has written a letter, and has
+taken some trouble with it, and more specially when he has copied it
+several times himself so as to have made many letters of it,--when he has
+argued his point successfully to himself, and has triumphed in his own
+mind, as was likely to be the case with Dr. Wortle in all that he did, he
+does not like to make waste paper of his letters.  As he rode home he
+tried to persuade himself that he might yet use them.  He could not quite
+admit his friend's point.  Mr. Peacocke, no doubt, had known his own
+condition, and him a strict moralist might condemn.  But he,--he,--Dr.
+Wortle,--had known nothing.  All that he had done was not to condemn the
+other man when he did know!
+
+Nevertheless as he rode into his own yard, he made up his mind that he
+would burn the letters.  He had shown them to no one else.  He had not
+even mentioned them to his wife.  He could burn them without condemning
+himself in the opinion of any one.  And he burned them.  When Mr.
+Puddicombe found him at the station at Broughton as they were about to
+proceed to London with Mrs. Peacocke, he simply whispered the fate of the
+letters.  "After what you said I destroyed what I had written."
+
+"Perhaps it was as well," said Mr. Puddicombe.
+
+When the telegram came to say that Mr. Peacocke was at Liverpool, Mrs.
+Peacocke was anxious immediately to rush up to London.  But she was
+restrained by the Doctor,--or rather by Mrs. Wortle under the Doctor's
+orders.  "No, my dear; no.  You must not go till all will be ready for you
+to meet him in the church.  The Doctor says so."
+
+"Am I not to see him till he comes up to the altar?"
+
+On this there was another consultation between Mrs. Wortle and the Doctor,
+at which she explained how impossible it would be for the woman to go
+through the ceremony with due serenity and propriety of manner unless she
+should be first allowed to throw herself into his arms, and to welcome him
+back to her.  "Yes," she said, "he can come and see you at the hotel on
+the evening before, and again in the morning,--so that if there be a word
+to say you can say it.  Then when it is over he will bring you down here.
+The Doctor and Mr. Puddicombe will come down by a later train.  Of course
+it is painful," said Mrs. Wortle, "but you must bear up."  To her it seemed
+to be so painful that she was quite sure that she could not have borne it.
+To be married for the third time, and for the second time to the same
+husband!  To Mrs. Peacocke, as she thought of it, the pain did not so much
+rest in that, as in the condition of life which these things had forced
+upon her.
+
+"I must go up to town to-morrow, and must be away for two days," said the
+Doctor out loud in the school, speaking immediately to one of the ushers,
+but so that all the boys present might hear him.  "I trust that we shall
+have Mr. Peacocke with us the day after to-morrow."
+
+"We shall be very glad of that," said the usher.
+
+"And Mrs. Peacocke will come and eat her dinner again like before?" asked
+a little boy.
+
+"I hope so, Charley."
+
+"We shall like that, because she has to eat it all by herself now."
+
+All the school, down even to Charley, the smallest boy in it, knew all
+about it.  Mr. Peacocke had gone to America, and Mrs. Peacocke was going
+up to London to be married once more to her own husband,--and the Doctor
+and Mr. Puddicombe were both going to marry them.  The usher of course
+knew the details more clearly than that,--as did probably the bigger boys.
+There had even been a rumour of the photograph which had been seen by one
+of the maid-servants,--who had, it is to be feared, given the information
+to the French teacher.  So much, however, the Doctor had felt it wise to
+explain, not thinking it well that Mr. Peacocke should make his
+reappearance among them without notice.
+
+On the afternoon of the next day but one, Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke were
+driven up to the school in one of the Broughton flys.  She went quickly up
+into her own house, when Mr. Peacocke walked into the school.  The boys
+clustered round him, and the three assistants, and every word said to him
+was kind and friendly;--but in the whole course of his troubles there had
+never been a moment to him more difficult than this,--in which he found it
+so nearly impossible to say anything or to say nothing.  "Yes, I have been
+over very many miles since I saw you last."  This was an answer to young
+Talbot, who asked him whether he had not been a great traveller whilst he
+was away.
+
+"In America," suggested the French usher, who had heard of the photograph,
+and knew very well where it had been taken.
+
+"Yes, in America."
+
+"All the way to San Francisco," suggested Charley.
+
+"All the way to San Francisco, Charley,--and back again."
+
+"Yes; I know you're come back again," said Charley, "because I see you
+here."
+
+"There are only twenty boys this half," said one of the twenty.
+
+"Then I shall have more time to attend to you now."
+
+"I suppose so," said the lad, not seeming to find any special consolation
+in that view of the matter.
+
+Painful as this first re-introduction had been, there was not much more in
+it than that.  No questions were asked, and no explanations expected.  It
+may be that Mrs. Stantiloup was affected with fresh moral horrors when she
+heard of the return, and that the Bishop said that the Doctor was foolish
+and headstrong as ever.  It may be that there was a good deal of talk
+about it in the Close at Broughton.  But at the school there was very
+little more said about it than what has been stated above.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+MARY'S SUCCESS.
+
+IN this last chapter of our short story I will venture to run rapidly over
+a few months so as to explain how the affairs of Bowick arranged
+themselves up to the end of the current year.  I cannot pretend that the
+reader shall know, as he ought to be made to know, the future fate and
+fortunes of our personages.  They must be left still struggling.  But then
+is not such always in truth the case, even when the happy marriage has
+been celebrated?--even when, in the course of two rapid years, two normal
+children make their appearance to gladden the hearts of their parents?
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke fell into their accustomed duties in the diminished
+school, apparently without difficulty.  As the Doctor had not sent those
+ill-judged letters he of course received no replies, and was neither
+troubled by further criticism nor consoled by praise as to his conduct.
+Indeed, it almost seemed to him as though the thing, now that it was done,
+excited less observation than it deserved.  He heard no more of the
+metropolitan press, and was surprised to find that the 'Broughton Gazette'
+inserted only a very short paragraph, in which it stated that "they had
+been given to understand that Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke had resumed their
+usual duties at the Bowick School, after the performance of an interesting
+ceremony in London, at which Dr. Wortle and Mr. Puddicombe had assisted."
+The press, as far as the Doctor was aware, said nothing more on the
+subject.  And if remarks injurious to his conduct were made by the
+Stantiloups and the Momsons, they did not reach his ears.  Very soon after
+the return of the Peacockes there was a grand dinner-party at the palace,
+to which the Doctor and his wife were invited.  It was not a clerical
+dinner-party, and so the honour was the greater.  The aristocracy of the
+neighbourhood were there, including Lady Anne Clifford, who was devoted,
+with almost repentant affection, to her old friend.  And Lady Margaret
+Momson was there, the only clergyman's wife besides his own, who declared
+to him with unblushing audacity that she had never regretted anything so
+much in her life as that Augustus should have been taken away from the
+school.  It was evident that there had been an intention at the palace to
+make what amends the palace could for the injuries it had done.
+
+"Did Lady Anne say anything about the boys?" asked Mrs. Wortle, as they
+were going home.
+
+"She was going to, but I would not let her.  I managed to show her that I
+did not wish it, and she was clever enough to stop."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if she sent them back," said Mrs. Wortle.
+
+"She won't do that.  Indeed, I doubt whether I should take them.  But if
+it should come to pass that she should wish to send them back, you may be
+sure that others will come.  In such a matter she is very good as a
+weathercock, showing how the wind blows."  In this way the dinner-party at
+the palace was in a degree comforting and consolatory.
+
+But an incident which of all was most comforting and most consolatory to
+one of the inhabitants of the parsonage took place two or three days after
+the dinner-party.  On going out of his own hall-door one Saturday
+afternoon, immediately after lunch, whom should the Doctor see driving
+himself into the yard in a hired gig from Broughton--but young Lord
+Carstairs.  There had been no promise, or absolute compact made, but it
+certainly had seemed to be understood by all of them that Carstairs was
+not to show himself at Bowick till at some long distant period, when he
+should have finished all the trouble of his education.  It was understood
+even that he was not to be at Carstairs during Mary's visit,--so
+imperative was it that the young people should not meet.  And now here he
+was getting out of a gig in the Rectory yard!  "Halloa!  Carstairs, is
+that you?"
+
+"Yes, Dr. Wortle,--here I am."
+
+"We hardly expected to see you, my boy."
+
+"No,--I suppose not.  But when I heard that Mr. Peacocke had come back,
+and all about his marriage, you know, I could not but come over to see
+him.  He and I have always been such great friends."
+
+"Oh,--to see Mr. Peacocke?"
+
+"I thought he'd think it unkind if I didn't look him up.  He has made it
+all right; hasn't he?"
+
+"Yes;--he has made it all right, I think.  A finer fellow never lived.
+But he'll tell you all about it.  He travelled with a pistol in his
+pocket, and seemed to want it too.  I suppose you must come in and see the
+ladies after we have been to Peacocke?"
+
+"I suppose I can just see them," said the young lord, as though moved by
+equal anxiety as to the mother and as to the daughter.
+
+"I'll leave word that you are here, and then we'll go into the school."
+So the Doctor found a servant, and sent what message he thought fit
+into the house.
+
+"Lord Carstairs here?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, Miss!  He's with your papa, going across to the school.  He
+told me to take word in to Missus that he supposes his lordship will stay
+to dinner."  The maid who carried the tidings, and who had received no
+commission to convey them to Miss Mary, was, no doubt, too much interested
+in an affair of love, not to take them first to the one that would be most
+concerned with them.
+
+That very morning Mary had been bemoaning herself as to her hard
+condition.  Of what use was it to her to have a lover, if she was never to
+see him, never to hear from him,--only to be told about him,--that she was
+not to think of him more than she could help?  She was already beginning
+to think that a long engagement carried on after this fashion would have
+more of suffering in it than she had anticipated.  It seemed to her that
+while she was, and always would be, thinking of him, he never, never would
+continue to think of her.  If it could be only a word once a month it
+would be something,--just one or two written words under an
+envelope,--even that would have sufficed to keep her hope alive!  But
+never to see him;--never to hear from him!  Her mother had told her that
+very morning that there was to be no meeting,--probably for three years,
+till he should have done with Oxford.  And here he was in the house,--and
+her papa had sent in word to say that he was to eat his dinner there!  It
+so astonished her that she felt that she would be afraid to meet him.
+Before she had had a minute to think of it all, her mother was with her.
+"Carstairs, love, is here!"
+
+"Oh mamma, what has brought him?"
+
+"He has gone into the school with your papa to see Mr. Peacocke.  He
+always was very fond of Mr. Peacocke."  For a moment something of a feeling
+of jealousy crossed her heart,--but only for a moment.  He would not
+surely have come to Bowick if he had begun to be indifferent to her
+already!  "Papa says that he will probably stay to dinner."
+
+"Then I am to see him?"
+
+"Yes;--of course you must see him."
+
+"I didn't know, mamma."
+
+"Don't you wish to see him?"
+
+"Oh yes, mamma.  If he were to come and go, and we were not to meet at
+all, I should think it was all over then.  Only,--I don't know what to say
+to him."
+
+"You must take that as it comes, my dear."
+
+Two hours afterwards they were walking, the two of them alone together,
+out in the Bowick woods.  When once the law,--which had been rather
+understood than spoken,--had been infringed and set at naught, there was
+no longer any use in endeavouring to maintain a semblance of its
+restriction.  The two young people had met in the presence both of the
+father and mother, and the lover had had her in his arms before either of
+them could interfere.  There had been a little scream from Mary, but it
+may probably be said of her that she was at the moment the happiest young
+lady in the diocese.
+
+"Does your father know you are here?" said the Doctor, as he led the young
+lord back from the school into the house.
+
+"He knows I'm coming, for I wrote and told my mother.  I always tell
+everything; but it's sometimes best to make up your mind before you get an
+answer."  Then the Doctor made up his mind that Lord Carstairs would have
+his own way in anything that he wished to accomplish.
+
+"Won't the Earl be angry?" Mrs. Wortle asked.
+
+"No;--not angry.  He knows the world too well not to be quite sure that
+something of the kind would happen.  And he is too fond of his son not to
+think well of anything that he does.  It wasn't to be supposed that they
+should never meet.  After all that has passed I am bound to make him
+welcome if he chooses to come here, and as Mary's lover to give him the
+best welcome that I can.  He won't stay, I suppose, because he has got no
+clothes."
+
+"But he has;--John brought in a portmanteau and a dressing-bag out of the
+gig."  So that was settled.
+
+In the mean time Lord Carstairs had taken Mary out for a walk into the
+wood, and she, as she walked beside him, hardly knew whether she was going
+on her head or her heels.  This, indeed, it was to have a lover.  In the
+morning she was thinking that when three years were past he would hardly
+care to see her ever again.  And now they were together among the falling
+leaves, and sitting about under the branches as though there was nothing
+in the world to separate them.  Up to that day there had never been a word
+between them but such as is common to mere acquaintances, and now he was
+calling her every instant by her Christian name, and telling her all his
+secrets.
+
+"We have such jolly woods at Carstairs," he said; "but we shan't be able
+to sit down when we're there, because it will be winter.  We shall be
+hunting, and you must come out and see us."
+
+"But you won't be there when I am," she said, timidly.
+
+"Won't I?  That's all you know about it.  I can manage better than that."
+
+"You'll be at Oxford."
+
+"You must stay over Christmas, Mary; that's what you must do.  You musn't
+think of going till January."
+
+"But Lady Bracy won't want me."
+
+"Yes, she will.  We must make her want you.  At any rate they'll
+understand this; if you don't stay for me, I shall come home even if it's
+in the middle of term.  I'll arrange that.  You don't suppose I'm not
+going to be there when you make your first visit to the old place."
+
+All this was being in Paradise.  She felt when she walked home with him,
+and when she was alone afterwards in her own room, that, in truth, she had
+only liked him before.  Now she loved him.  Now she was beginning to know
+him, and to feel that she would really,--really die of a broken heart if
+anything were to rob her of him.  But she could let him go now, without a
+feeling of discomfort, if she thought that she was to see him again when
+she was at Carstairs.
+
+But this was not the last walk in the woods, even on this occasion.  He
+remained two days at Bowick, so necessary was it for him to renew his
+intimacy with Mr. Peacocke.  He explained that he had got two days' leave
+from the tutor of his College, and that two days, in College parlance,
+always meant three.  He would be back on the third day, in time for
+"gates"; and that was all which the strictest college discipline would
+require of him.  It need hardly be said of him that the most of his time
+he spent with Mary; but he did manage to devote an hour or two to his old
+friend, the school-assistant.
+
+Mr. Peacocke told his whole story, and Carstairs, whose morals were
+perhaps not quite so strict as those of Mr. Puddicombe, gave him all his
+sympathy.  "To think that a man can be such a brute as that," he said,
+when he heard that Ferdinand Lefroy had shown himself to his wife at St.
+Louis,--"only on a spree."
+
+"There is no knowing to what depth utter ruin may reduce a man who has
+been born to better things.  He falls into idleness, and then comforts
+himself with drink.  So it seems to have been with him."
+
+"And that other fellow;--do you think he meant to shoot you?"
+
+"Never.  But he meant to frighten me.  And when he brought out his knife
+in the bedroom at Leavenworth he did.  My pistol was not loaded."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because little as I wish to be murdered, I should prefer that to
+murdering any one else.  But he didn't mean it.  His only object was to
+get as much out of me as he could.  As for me, I couldn't give him more
+because I hadn't got it."  After that they made a league of friendship, and
+Mr. Peacocke promised that he would, on some distant occasion, take his
+wife with him on a visit to Carstairs.
+
+It was about a month after this that Mary was packed up and sent on her
+journey to Carstairs.  When that took place, the Doctor was in supreme
+good-humour.  There had come a letter from the father of the two Mowbrays,
+saying that he had again changed his mind.  He had, he said, heard a story
+told two ways.  He trusted Dr. Wortle would understand him and forgive
+him, when he declared that he had believed both the stories.  If after
+this the Doctor chose to refuse to take his boys back again, he would
+have, he acknowledged, no ground for offence.  But if the Doctor would
+take them, he would intrust them to the Doctor's care with the greatest
+satisfaction in the world,--as he had done before.
+
+For a while the Doctor had hesitated; but here, perhaps for the first time
+in her life, his wife was allowed to persuade him.  "They are such leading
+people," she said.
+
+"Who cares for that?  I have never gone in for that."  This, however, was
+hardly true.  "When I have been sure that a man is a gentleman, I have
+taken his son without inquiring much farther.  It was mean of him to
+withdraw after I had acceded to his request."
+
+"But he withdraws his withdrawal in such a flattering way!"  Then the
+Doctor assented, and the two boys were allowed to come.  Lady Anne
+Clifford hearing this, learning that the Doctor was so far willing to
+relent, became very piteous and implored forgiveness.  The noble relatives
+were all willing now.  It had not been her fault.  As far as she was
+concerned herself she had always been anxious that her boys should remain
+at Bowick.  And so the two Cliffords came back to their old beds in the
+old room.
+
+Mary, when she first arrived at Carstairs, hardly knew how to carry
+herself.  Lady Bracy was very cordial and the Earl friendly, but for the
+first two days nothing was said about Carstairs.  There was no open
+acknowledgment of her position.  But then she had expected none; and
+though her tongue was burning to talk, of course she did not say a word.
+But before a week was over Lady Bracy had begun, and by the end of the
+fortnight Lord Bracy had given her a beautiful brooch.  "That means," said
+Lady Bracy in the confidence of her own little sitting-room up-stairs,
+"that he looks upon you as his daughter."
+
+"Does it?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, yes."  Then they fell to kissing each other, and did nothing
+but talk about Carstairs and all his perfections, and his unalterable
+love, and how these three years could be made to wear themselves away,
+till the conversation,--simmering over as such conversation is wont to
+do,--gave the whole household to understand that Miss Wortle was staying
+there as Lord Carstairs's future bride.
+
+Of course she stayed over the Christmas, or went back to Bowick for a
+week, and then returned to Carstairs, so that she might tell her mother
+everything, and hear of the six new boys who were to come after the
+holidays.  "Papa couldn't take both the Buncombes," said Mrs. Wortle in
+her triumph, "and one must remain till midsummer.  Sir George did say that
+it must be two or none, but he had to give way.  I wanted papa to have
+another bed in the east room, but he wouldn't hear of it."
+
+Mary went back for the Christmas and Carstairs came; and the house was
+full, and everybody knew of the engagement.  She walked with him, and rode
+with him, and danced with him, and talked secrets with him,--as though
+there were no Oxford, no degree before him.  No doubt it was very
+imprudent, but the Earl and the Countess knew all about it.  What might
+be, or would be, or was the end of such folly, it is not my purpose here
+to tell.  I fear that there was trouble before them.  It may, however, be
+possible that the degree should be given up on the score of love, and Lord
+Carstairs should marry his bride,--at any rate when he came of age.
+
+As to the school, it certainly suffered nothing by the Doctor's
+generosity, and when last I heard of Mr. Peacocke, the Bishop had offered
+to grant him a licence for the curacy.  Whether he accepted it I have not
+yet heard, but I am inclined to think that in this matter he will adhere
+to his old determination.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Textual emendations and noteworthy items
+
+1  Alterations
+
+1 1   Word changes
+
+1 1 1    Additions
+
+1 1 1 1  Added "l" to "crue"
+Vol. I--Page 146, line 8
+did sit down.  "He has made you out to be a perjured, wilful,
+cruel* bigamist."
+
+1 1 1 2  Added "b" to "Puddicome's"
+Vol. II--Page 15, line 1
+he must hold his peace.  That reference to Mr. Puddicomb*e's
+dirty boot had
+
+1 1 1 3  Added "e" to "Ann"
+Vol. II--Page 215, line 6
+hand in order that he might send them to the Bishop and to
+Lady Anne*
+
+1 1 2    Deletions
+
+1 1 2 1  Deleted repeated word "not"
+Vol. II--Page 15, line 10
+been a grain of tenderness there, he could not* have spoken
+so often as he
+
+1 1 2 2  Deleted repeated "i" in "hiim"
+Vol. II--Page 87, line 9
+not leave the man to triumph over hi*m.  If nothing further
+were done in
+
+1 1 3    Substitutions
+
+1 1 3 1  Changed lowercase "de" to uppercase "De" to conform
+to majority usage (11 out of 14 times with uppercase)
+Vol. I--Page 34, line 7
+Lawle, who had in early years been a dear friend to Mrs.
+Wortle.  Lady *De Lawle was the widow
+
+Vol. I--Page 48, line 9
+Bishop,--before Mrs. Wortle or the Hon. Mrs. Stantiloup, or
+Lady *De Lawle.
+
+Vol. I--Page 82, line 17
+to you; different in not accepting Lady *De Lawle's
+hospitality; different
+
+1 1 3 2  Changed "out" to "our"
+Vol. I--Page 88, line 22
+and me, can have no effect but to increase our* troubles.
+You are a woman,
+
+1 1 3 3  Changed lowercase "junction" to uppercase "Junction"
+to conform to majority usage (3 out of 4 times with uppercase)
+Vol. II--Page 147, line 6
+been written at the Ogden *Junction, at which Mr. Peacocke had
+stopped for
+
+1 2   Punctuation changes
+
+1 2 1    Additions
+
+1 2 1 1  Added quotation marks
+
+1 2 1 1 1   ...opening double quotation mark
+Vol. I--Page 146, line 7
+did sit down.  *"He has made you out to be a perjured, wilful,
+cruel
+
+Vol. II--Page 102, line 3
+kind feelings which have hitherto existed between us.--Yours
+very faithfully,
+
+*"C. BROUGHTON."
+
+1 2 1 1 2   ...closing double quotation mark
+Vol. II--Page 35, line 16
+were given.  "It is not enough to be innocent," said the Bishop,
+"but men must know that we are so."*
+
+1 2 1 1 3   ...opening single quotation mark
+Vol. II--Page 103, line 11
+Mrs. Wortle.  So much had been effected by *'Everybody's
+Business,' and its
+
+1 2 1 1 4   ...closing single quotation mark
+Vol. I--Page 48, line 21
+'Black Dwarf'* be if every one knew from the beginning that he
+was a rich
+
+1 2 1 1 5   ...single quotation marks
+Vol. II--Page 95, line 15
+beforehand whom he was about to smite.  "*'Amo' in the cool of
+the
+
+1 2 1 2  Added apostrophe
+Vol. I--Page 120, line 19
+ricketiest little buggy that ever a man trusted his life to.
+Them'*s
+
+1 2 1 3  Added full stop
+
+1 2 1 3 1   ...after "more"
+Vol. II--Page 83, line 11
+very nice boy; and so he was still; that;--that, and nothing
+more.*  Then
+
+1 2 1 3 2   ...after "St"
+Vol. II--Page 109, line 7
+round by St.* Louis.  Lefroy was anxious to go to St. Louis,--and
+on that
+
+1 2 1 3 3   ...after "engagement"
+Vol. II--Page 163, line 21
+not known that she was very much afraid of a long engagement.*
+She would,
+
+1 2 1 3 4   ...after "Wortle"
+Vol. II--Page 231, line 2
+"I shouldn't wonder if she sent them back," said Mrs. Wortle.*
+
+1 2 2    Deletions
+
+1 2 2 1  Deleted quotation marks
+
+1 2 2 1 1   ...opening double quotation mark
+Vol. II--Page 222, line 18
+*On this there was another consultation between Mrs. Wortle
+and the Doctor,
+
+1 2 2 1 2   ...closing double quotation mark
+Vol. I--Page 146, line 11
+"I have not been such," said Peacocke, rising from his chair.*
+
+Vol. II--Page 221, line 14
+Wortle,--had known nothing.  All that he had done was not to
+condemn the other man when he did know!*
+
+1 2 2 1 3   ...opening single quotation mark
+Vol. II--Page 238, line 12
+between them but such as is common *to mere acquaintances, and
+now he was
+
+1 2 2 2  Deleted extra space after opening double quotation mark
+Vol. I--Page 81, line 14
+at his feet, buried her face in his lap.  "*Ella," he said, "the
+only
+
+1 2 3    Substitutions
+
+1 2 3 1  Changed single closing quotation mark to double closing
+quotation mark
+Vol. II--Page 105, line 18
+"My taking you across to the States."*
+
+1 2 3 2  Changed full stop to comma
+Vol. I--Page 185, line 18
+facts were known to the entire diocese."  After this there was a
+pause,*
+
+2  Items of note
+
+2 1   Spelling
+
+2 1 1    Verbs in "-ize" normally in "-ise"
+
+2 1 1 1  sympathize
+Vol. I--Page 156, line 4
+only say this, as between man and man, that no man ever
+sympathized* with
+
+2 1 1 2  apologize
+Vol. II--Page 14, line 17
+found himself obliged to apologize* before he left the house!
+And, too, he
+
+2 1 2    Variation in hyphenation
+
+2 1 2 1  weather(-)cock
+Vol. II--Page 196, line 2
+"And of fine generous feeling.  He would not change like a
+weather-*cock."
+
+Vol. II--Page 231, line 8
+weathercock*, showing how the wind blows."  In this way the
+dinner-party at
+
+2 1 2 2  a(-)verb-ing
+Vol. II--Page 119, line 1
+"Not a foot; I ain't a-*going out of this room to-morrow."
+
+Vol. II--Page 182, lines 5 & 6
+"We are *alooking at 'em," said Lefroy.
+
+"If you're *agoing to do anything of that kind you'd better
+go and do it
+
+2 2   Punctuation
+
+2 2 1    Full stop changed to question mark
+Vol. I--Page 134, line 3
+longer I shall send for the policeman to remove you."
+
+"You will?*"
+
+2 2 2    Full stop used instead of question mark
+Vol. II--Page 47, line 16
+building staring him in the face every moment of his life.*
+
+Vol. II--Page 63, line 17
+"I may tell them that the action is withdrawn.*"
+
+2 2 3    Exclamation point used instead of question mark
+Vol. II--Page 75, line 8
+"Of course he did.  Had he anything particular to say!*"
+
+
+
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