"Bad! The sort of man that makes his order a by-word, for all the world to spit upon. I should think even you must have some knowledge of him. His first wife divorced him; his second died because he ill-treated her."
"Is that known?"
"Yes. In the way these things are known."
"He was Hubert Legrange, wasn't he? He was in my tutor's house at Eton—after your time. He wasn't bad then—high-spirited, troublesome, perhaps—that was all. But warm-hearted—merry. I liked him."
"Ah, my dear Tom! That's the sad thing, when you get to our age. To see the men you've known as boys—how some of them turn out! I've sometimes thought lately that I ought to have been more grateful to God Almighty for keeping me free from a good many temptations I might have had. I married young; I settled down here; it was what suited me. But I see now that those tastes were given to me for my good. If it hadn't been for that I might have gone wrong just as well as another. I had money from the moment I came of age. I could have done what I liked. Money's a great temptation to a young fellow."
The Rector hardly knew whether to be pleased or sorry at this vein of moralising that had lately come over his brother. It showed his mind working as he might have wished to see it work, towards humility and a more lively faith; but it also showed him deeply affected by the waves that were passing over his head; and the waves were black and heavy.
"What you say is very true," he said. "God keep us all faithful, as He kept you, Edward. You were tempted, and you were upheld. You see that now, I think."
"I thought," said the poor Squire after a pause, "that God was working to avert this disgrace from me. Everything seemed to have been ordered, in a way that was almost miraculous, to that end. It was just when I was shaking off the last uncomfortable thoughts about it, when everything seemed most bright for the future, that the blow fell. Well, I suppose it was to be, and it will come right for us all in the end; though I don't think I shall know a happy moment again as long as I live. I was living in a fool's paradise. I don't quite understand it, Tom."
The Rector thought he did. A fool's paradise is a paradise that the fool makes for himself, and when he is driven out of it blames a higher power. He was not inclined to think his brother the worse off, in all that really mattered, for having been driven out of his paradise. But it was a little difficult to tell him so.
The necessity was spared him for the moment. Dick came in, and was shown the letter.