all this
correspondence with the Bishop has helped. The Bishop hasn't kept it as a
secret. Why should he?"

"The Bishop has had nothing to do with the school," said Mrs. Wortle.

"No; but the things have been mixed up together. Do you think it would
have no effect with such a woman as Lady Anne Clifford, to be told that
the Bishop had censured my conduct severely? If it had not been for Mrs.
Stantiloup, the Bishop would have heard nothing about it. It is her
doing. And it pains me to feel that I have to give her credit for her
skill and her energy."

"Her wickedness, you mean."

"What does it signify whether she has been wicked or not in this matter?"

"Oh, Jeffrey!"

"Her wickedness is a matter of course. We all knew that beforehand. If a
person has to be wicked, it is a great thing for him to be successful in
his wickedness. He would have to pay the final penalty even if he failed.
To be wicked and to do nothing is to be mean all round. I am afraid that
Mrs. Stantiloup will have succeeded in her wickedness."

CHAPTER VIII.

LORD BRACY'S LETTER.

THE school and the parish went on through August and September, and up to
the middle of October, very quietly. The quarrel between the Bishop and
the Doctor had altogether subsided. People in the diocese had ceased to
talk continually of Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke. There was still alive a
certain interest as to what might be the ultimate fate of the poor lady;
but other matters had come up, and she no longer formed the one topic of
conversation at all meetings. The twenty boys at the school felt that, as
their numbers had been diminished, so also had their reputation. They
were less loud, and, as other boys would have said of them, less "cocky"
than of yore. But they ate and drank and played, and, let us hope, learnt
their lessons as usual. Mrs. Peacocke had from time to time received
letters from her husband, the last up to the time of which we speak having
been written at the Ogden Junction, at which Mr. Peacocke had stopped for
four-and-twenty hours with the object of making inquiry as to the
statement made to him at St. Louis. Here he learned enough to convince
him that Robert Lefroy had told him the truth in regard to what had there
occurred. The people about the station still remembered the condition of
the man who had been taken out of the car when suffering from delirium
tremens; and remembered also that the man had not died there, but had b