vitable. The
point is that, without drastic change in me, it was quite unnatural. My
will was unaccustomed to brook any resistance, and troubled itself not
at all with argument. Till then what I wished to do I did, and there was
an end. I now for the first time found myself obliged to accept a moral
bondage imposed upon me by my curate. The term may sound exaggerated;
I can only say that was how the matter presented itself to me. From the
moment I did so, I took second place to him.

"We continued to sit from time to time. And the strange, to me
inexplicable, situation rapidly developed.

"To put it before you in few words and plainly: Chichester seemed to suck
my will away from me gradually but surely, till my former strength was
his. But that was not all. With the growth of his will there was another
and more terrible growth: there rose in him a curiously observant
faculty."

Again the rector took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.

"A curiously critical faculty. How shall I say? Perhaps you may know,
Mr. Malling, how the persistent attitude of one mind may influence
another. For instance, if a man always expects ill of another--treachery,
let us say, bad temper, hatred, fear, inducing trickery, perhaps, that
other is turned toward just such evil manifestations in connection with
that man. If some one with psychic force thinks all you do is wrong,
soon you begin to do things wrongly. A fearful uneasiness is bred. The
faculties begin to fail. The formerly sure-footed stumbles. The formerly
self-confident takes on nervousness, presently fear.

"So it came about between Chichester and me. I felt that his mind was
beginning to watch me critically, and I became anxious about this
criticism. Like some subtle acid it seemed to act destructively upon
the metal, once so hard and resistant, of my self-confidence, of my
belief in myself. Often I felt as if an eye were upon me, seeing too
much, far too much, coldly, inexorably, persistently. This critical
observation became hateful to me. I suffered under it. I suffered
terribly. Mr. Malling, if I am to tell you all,--and I feel that unless
I do no help can come to me,--I must tell you that I have not been in my
life all that a clergyman should be. There have been occasions, and even
since my marriage, when I have yielded to impulses that have prompted me
to act very wrongly.

"Now, Chichester was a saint. Hitherto I had neither been troubled by
my own grave shortcom