Dr. Wortle's School

by Anthony Trollope

ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited, 193, PICCADILLY.
1881.

[All Rights reserved.]

LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.

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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]

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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 £200 a-year. It was said of him by his friends that if he would only raise his price to £250, 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 £2 10s. 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 £5. 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 tête-à-tête 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 Cæsar, 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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar says here or elsewhere if you do not give your entire mind to Cæsar."

"I do give my entire mind to Cæsar," said Clifford, junior.

"Very well; now go on and try again. But remember that Cæsar 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 Cæsar, 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 phœnix 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 £20,000 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.

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