His black mood had come upon him,
and everything was to be forgiven him now. He was as a child when
cutting his teeth. Let the poor wayward sufferer be ever so petulant,
the mother simply pities and loves him, and is never angry. "I beg
your pardon, Josiah," she said, "but I thought it would comfort you
to speak to me about it."

"It will not comfort me," he said. "Nothing comforts me. Nothing can
comfort me. Jane, give me my hat and my stick." His daughter brought
to him his hat and stick, and without another word he went out and
left them.

As a matter of course he turned his steps towards Hoggle End. When he
desired to be long absent from the house, he always went among the
brickmakers. His wife, as she stood at the window and watched the
direction in which he went, knew that he might be away for hours. The
only friends out of his own family with whom he ever spoke freely
were some of those rough parishioners. But he was not thinking of
the brickmakers when he started. He was simply desirous of reading
again Dr. Tempest's letter, and of considering it, in some spot where
no eye could see him. He walked away with long steps, regarding
nothing,--neither the ruts in the dirty lane, nor the young primroses
which were fast showing themselves on the banks, nor the gathering
clouds which might have told him of the coming rain. He went on for
a couple of miles, till he had nearly reached the outskirts of the
colony of Hoggle End, and then he sat himself down upon a gate. He
had not been there a minute before a few slow drops began to fall,
but he was altogether too much wrapped up in his thoughts to regard
the rain. What answer should he make to this letter from the man at
Silverbridge?

The position of his own mind in reference to his own guilt or his
own innocence was very singular. It was simply the truth that he did
not know how the cheque had come to him. He did know that he had
blundered about it most egregiously, especially when he had averred
that this cheque for twenty pounds had been identical with a cheque
for another sum which had been given to him by Mr. Soames. He had
blundered since, in saying that the dean had given it to him. There
could be no doubt as to this, for the dean had denied that he had
done so. And he had come to think it very possible that he had indeed
picked the cheque up, and had afterwards used it, having deposited
it by some strange accident,--not knowing then what he was doing, or
what