s a week.

His wife was an active--too active for the vicar's wife--supporter of
Saint Frideswide's Church, and when her husband became one of the
leisured classes she did her utmost to spur him to a like interest. He
obeyed passively, became a sidesman, and in due course vicar's warden.
He was not, to use the vicar's words, "a keen churchman," being on the
whole an optimistic pragmatist rather than a devotee of dogma. But he
was a good man, cheerful, kindly, with some harmless vanities. He liked,
for example, to take the alms-bag round and lead the procession of
collectors. He would complain of the trouble entailed by the
organization of the annual treat or the parish tea, but secretly he
appreciated the occupation and the importance thereof. These things
helped to fill a portion of a vacant existence, but they were not
enough. He felt that he was rusting.

This evening "melancholy marked him for her own." It had been a day more
vacant of incident than usual, and he was almost bad-tempered. The
thought of the recent defeat by Alicia rankled, and he turned over in
his mind schemes by which he could outwit her and procure a holiday in
Brighton. "It's all very well," he grumbled to himself, "but I don't see
why I should continually knuckle under. I've been too easy-going. It's
time things were put on a different footing. I wonder if ..."

He was still wondering when Alicia returned, and the solution of his
difficulties was not yet. Alicia, who was in an aggressive good-humor,
commented on his dulness. Robert replied in a tone that she
characterized as "snappy"; she also made the inevitable suggestion that
he had eaten something that disagreed with him.

"_Good lord!_" said Robert, goaded at last beyond caution and fear. "Who
wouldn't be snappy, doing nothing half the day, and the other half doing
what he doesn't like? Nothing ever happens here--it's like being a fly
buzzing in a tumbler. He can't get out, though he can see all sorts of
interesting things through the glass."

"You ought to be thankful for your many mercies," said his wife coldly:
she knew the treatment for the case. "Instead of grumbling like a child,
you had better go to bed. That is, if you have finished supper."

At that moment Mr. Hedderwick had one of the strongest temptations of a
blameless life. He yearned for the courage to say, "Oh, damn the
supper!" but broke into a perspiration at the mere thought. Instead, he
had the grace to be astonishe