"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?"