shment. He has heard, no doubt,
something of the story which has injured our credit, and it is natural
that he should take the boys away."

"Do you think that the school will be put an end to?"

"It looks very like it."

"Altogether?"

"I shall not care to drag it on as a failure. I am too old now to begin
again with a new attempt if this collapses. I have no offers to fill up
the vacancies. The parents of those who remain, of course, will know how
it is going with the school. I shall not be disposed to let it die of
itself. My idea at present is to carry it on without saying anything till
the Christmas holidays, and then to give notice to the parents that the
establishment will be closed at Midsummer."

"Will it make you very unhappy?"

"No doubt it will. A man does not like to fail. I am not sure but what I
am less able to bear such failure than most men."

"But you have sometimes thought of giving it up."

"Have I? I have not known it. Why should I give it up? Why should any
man give up a profession while he has health and strength to carry it on?"

"You have another."

"Yes; but it is not the one to which my energies have been chiefly
applied. The work of a parish such as this can be done by one person. I
have always had a curate. It is, moreover, nonsense to say that a man
does not care most for that by which he makes his money. I am to give up
over L2000 a-year, which I have had not a trouble but a delight in making!
It is like coming to the end of one's life."

"Oh, Jeffrey!"

"It has to be looked in the face, you know."

"I wish,--I wish they had never come."

"What is the good of wishing? They came, and according to my way of
thinking I did my duty by them. Much as I am grieved by this, I protest
that I would do the same again were it again to be done. Do you think
that I would be deterred from what I thought to be right by the
machinations of a she-dragon such as that?"

"Has she done it?"

"Well, I think so," said the Doctor, after some little hesitation. "I
think it has been, in truth, her doing. There has been a grand
opportunity for slander, and she has used it with uncommon skill. It was
a wonderful chance in her favour. She has been enabled without actual
lies,--lies which could be proved to be lies,--to spread abroad reports
which have been absolutely damning. And she has succeeded in getting hold
of the very people through whom she could injure me. Of course