poken. He had been there so long; he had
spent so much money on the church and the parish; his gentle dreamy
manner was greatly liked. He was a gentleman; and had helped many
people; and, though his love of music and vestments had always caused
heart-burnings, yet it had given a certain cachet to the church. The
women, at any rate, were always glad to know that the church they went to
was capable of drawing their fellow women away from other churches.
Besides, it was war-time, and moral delinquency which in time of peace
would have bulked too large to neglect, was now less insistently dwelt
on, by minds preoccupied by food and air-raids. Things, of course, could
not go on as they were; but as yet they did go on.

The talked-about is always the last to hear the talk; and nothing
concrete or tangible came Pierson's way. He went about his usual routine
without seeming change. And yet there was a change, secret and creeping.
Wounded almost to death himself, he felt as though surrounded by one
great wound in others; but it was some weeks before anything occurred to
rouse within him the weapon of anger or the protective impulse.

And then one day a little swift brutality shook him to the very soul. He
was coming home from a long parish round, and had turned into the Square,
when a low voice behind him said:

"Wot price the little barstard?"

A cold, sick feeling stifled his very breathing; he gasped, and spun
round, to see two big loutish boys walking fast away. With swift and
stealthy passion he sprang after them, and putting his hands on their two
neighbouring shoulders, wrenched them round so that they faced him, with
mouths fallen open in alarm. Shaking them with all his force, he said:

"How dare you--how dare you use that word?" His face and voice must have
been rather terrible, for the scare in their faces brought him to sudden
consciousness of his own violence, and he dropped his hands. In two
seconds they were at the corner. They stopped there for a second; one of
them shouted "Gran'pa"; then they vanished. He was left with lips and
hands quivering, and a feeling that he had not known for years--the weak
white empty feeling one has after yielding utterly to sudden murderous
rage. He crossed over, and stood leaning against the Garden railings,
with the thought: 'God forgive me! I could have killed them--I could
have killed them!' There had been a devil in him. If he had had
something in his hand, he