“Cheek looks a little puffy. Curious fall that of Tom Candlish. Looked more like having been in another prize-fight. Let me see your knuckles.”
“No; they’re all right. Don’t humbug, Horace, old man. You’ve guessed it. I gave him a most awful thrashing.”
“Bless you, my son!” cried the doctor, clapping him on the shoulder.
“And I feel miserable at having disgraced myself so.”
“Nonsense! Church militant. Thrashed a confounded scoundrel. But what for? He has never had the insolence to—?”
He gave his head a short nod towards the drawing-room.
“Yes, and—There, I caught them together. He has been sending notes to her to meet him. I was in a passion, and he insulted me; and—and—”
“You pitched into the scoundrel, and you’ve given him the loveliest thrashing a man ever deserved. My dear Salis, you’ve done one of the grandest deeds of your life.”
“I’m a clergyman, and I’ve behaved like a blackguard.”
“Nonsense! There’s only one drawback to what you have done.”