e same opinion, and were not slow to express it. All
Alresford would know it, and would sympathise with John Gordon. And
as it came to be known that he himself had given up the girl whom
he loved, he could read the ridicule which would be conveyed by the
smiles of his neighbours.

To tell the truth of Mr Whittlestaff, he was a man very open to such
shafts of ridicule. The "_robur et aes triplex_" which fortified his
heart went only to the doing of a good and unselfish action, and did
not extend to providing him with that adamantine shield which virtue
should of itself supply. He was as pervious to these stings as a man
might be who had not strength to act in opposition to them. He could
screw himself up to the doing of a great deed for the benefit of
another, and could as he was doing so deplore with inward tears
the punishment which the world would accord to him for the deed.
As he sat there in the corner of his carriage, he was thinking
of the punishment rather than of the glory. And the punishment
must certainly come now. It would be a punishment lasting for the
remainder of his life, and so bitter in its kind as to make any
further living almost impossible to him. It was not that he would
kill himself. He did not meditate any such step as that. He was a
man who considered that by doing an outrage to God's work an offence
would be committed against God which admitted of no repentance. He
must live through it to the last. But he must live as a man who was
degraded. He had made his effort, but his effort would be known to
all Alresford. Mr Montagu Blake would take care of that.

The evil done to him would be one which would admit of no complaint
from his own mouth. He would be left alone, living with Mrs
Baggett,--who of course knew all the facts. The idea of Mrs Baggett
going away with her husband was of course not to be thought of. That
was another nuisance, a small evil in comparison with the great
misfortune of his life.

He had brought this girl home to his house to be the companion of his
days, and she had come to have in his mouth a flavour, as it were,
and sweetness beyond all other sweetnesses. She had lent a grace
to his days of which for many years he had not believed them to be
capable. He was a man who had thought much of love, reading about it
in all the poets with whose lines he was conversant. He was one who,
in all that he read, would take the gist of it home to himself, and
ask himself how it was