“Is it possible,” the rector answered viciously, a ring as of steel in his voice, “that a man who had had his dear friend’s death announced to him could forget the news in a year, and think of him as still alive?”
The earl gasped with passion. By a tremendous effort he refrained from using bad words, and even forbore, in view of the alarmed looks of the ladies and the archdeacon’s hasty expostulation, to call his opponent, a villain or a scoundrel. He stammered only, “You—you—are you going to give up my living?”
“No,” was the answer.
“You are not?”
“Certainly I am not!” the rector answered. “If you had treated me differently, Lord Dynmore,” he continued, speaking with his arms crossed and his lip curling with scorn and defiance, “my answer might have been different! Now, though the mistake has been with yourself or your people, you have accused me of fraud! You have treated me as an impostor! You have dared to ask me, though I have been ministering to the people in this parish for months, whether I am a clergyman! You have insulted me grossly, and, so doing, have put it out of my power to resign had I been so minded! And you may be sure I shall not resign.”
He looked handsome enough as he flung down his defiance. But the earl cared nothing for his looks. “You will not?” he stuttered.
“No! I acknowledge no authority whatever in you,” was the answer. “You are functus officio. I am subject to the bishop, and to him only.”
“Give me my hat,” mumbled the peer, turning abruptly away; and, tugging up the collar of his fur coat, he began to grope about in a manner which at another time would have been laughable. “Give me my hat, some one,” he repeated. “Let me get out before I swear. I am functus officio, am I? I have never been so insulted in my life! Never, so help me heaven! Never! Let me get out!”
His murmurs died away in the hall, Mr. Clode with much presence of mind opening the door for him and letting him out. When they ceased, in the room he had left there was absolute silence. The men avoided one another’s eyes. The women, their lips parted, looked each at her neighbor. Mrs. Homfray, the young wife of an old husband, was the first to speak. “Well, I never!” she sighed.
That broke the spell. The rector, who had hitherto gazed darkly, with flushed brow and compressed lips, at the hearth-rug, roused himself. “I think I had better go,” he said, his tone hard and ungracious, “You will excuse me, I am sure, Mrs. Hammond. Good-night. Good-night.”