lieve it. Her malice is
sufficient to make her conduct intelligible;--but there is no malice in
the Bishop's mind against me. He would infinitely sooner live with me on
pleasant terms if he could justify his doing so to his conscience. He has
been stirred to do this in the execution of some presumed duty. I do not
accuse him of malice. But I do accuse him of a meanness of intellect
lower than what I could have presumed to have been possible in a man so
placed. I never thought him clever; I never thought him great; I never
thought him even to be a gentleman, in the fullest sense of the word; but
I did think he was a man. This is the performance of a creature not
worthy to be called so."

"Oh, Jeffrey, he did not believe all that."

"What did he believe? When he read that article, did he see in it a true
rebuke against a hypocrite, or did he see in it a scurrilous attack upon a
brother clergyman, a neighbour, and a friend? If the latter, he certainly
would not have been instigated by it to write to me such a letter as he
did. He certainly would not have sent the paper to me had he felt it to
contain a foul-mouthed calumny."

"He wanted you to know what people of that sort were saying."

"Yes; he wanted me to know that, and he wanted me to know also that the
knowledge had come to me from my bishop. I should have thought evil of
any one who had sent me the vile ribaldry. But coming from him, it fills
me with despair."

"Despair!" she said, repeating his word.

"Yes; despair as to the condition of the Church when I see a man capable
of such meanness holding so high place. '"Amo" in the cool of the
evening!' That words such as those should have been sent to me by the
Bishop, as showing what the 'metropolitan press' of the day was saying
about my conduct! Of course, my action will be against him,--against the
Bishop. I shall be bound to expose his conduct. What else can I do?
There are things which a man cannot bear and live. Were I to put up with
this I must leave the school, leave the parish;--nay, leave the country.
There is a stain upon me which I must wash out, or I cannot remain here."

"No, no, no," said his wife, embracing him.

"'"Amo" in the cool of the evening!' And that when, as God is my judge
above me, I have done my best to relieve what has seemed to me the
unmerited sorrows of two poor sufferers! Had it come from Mrs.
Stantiloup, it would, of course, have been nothing. I could have
u