"You have another."
"Yes; but it is not the one to which my energies have been chiefly applied. The work of a parish such as this can be done by one person. I have always had a curate. It is, moreover, nonsense to say that a man does not care most for that by which he makes his money. I am to give up over £2000 a-year, which I have had not a trouble but a delight in making! It is like coming to the end of one's life."
"Oh, Jeffrey!"
"It has to be looked in the face, you know."
"I wish,—I wish they had never come."
"What is the good of wishing? They came, and according to my way of thinking I did my duty by them. Much as I am grieved by this, I protest that I would do the same again were it again to be done. Do you think that I would be deterred from what I thought to be right by the machinations of a she-dragon such as that?"
"Has she done it?"
"Well, I think so," said the Doctor, after some little hesitation. "I think it has been, in truth, her doing. There has been a grand opportunity for slander, and she has used it with uncommon skill. It was a wonderful chance in her favour. She has been enabled without actual lies,—lies which could be proved to be lies,—to spread abroad reports which have been absolutely damning. And she has succeeded in getting hold of the very people through whom she could injure me. Of course all this correspondence with the Bishop has helped. The Bishop hasn't kept it as a secret. Why should he?"
"The Bishop has had nothing to do with the school," said Mrs. Wortle.
"No; but the things have been mixed up together. Do you think it would have no effect with such a woman as Lady Anne Clifford, to be told that the Bishop had censured my conduct severely? If it had not been for Mrs. Stantiloup, the Bishop would have heard nothing about it. It is her doing. And it pains me to feel that I have to give her credit for her skill and her energy."