s all in vain. It is all in vain." Then he
returned back to the parlour, and seating himself again in the
arm-chair, remained there without speaking till past midnight. At
last, when she told him that she herself was very cold, and reminded
him that for the last hour there had been no fire, still speechless,
he went up with her to their bed.

Early on the following morning she contrived to let him know that she
was about to send a neighbour's son over with a note to Mr. Walker,
fearing to urge him further to change his mind; but hoping that he
might express his purpose of doing so when he heard that the letter
was to be sent; but he took no notice whatever of her words. At this
moment he was reading Greek with his daughter, or rather rebuking her
because she could not be induced to read Greek.

"Oh, papa," the poor girl said, "don't scold me now. I am so unhappy
because of all of this."

"And am not I unhappy?" he said, as he closed the book. "My God, what
have I done against thee, that my lines should be cast in such
terrible places?"

The letter was sent to Mr. Walker. "He knows himself to be innocent,"
said the poor wife, writing what best excuse she knew how to make,
"and thinks that he should take no step himself in such a matter. He
will not employ a lawyer, and he says that he should prefer that he
should be sent for, if the law requires his presence at Silverbridge
on Thursday." All this she wrote, as though she felt that she ought
to employ a high tone in defending her husband's purpose; but she
broke down altogether in the few words of the postscript. "Indeed,
indeed I have done what I could!" Mr. Walker understood it all, both
the high tone and the subsequent fall.

On the Thursday morning, at about ten o'clock, a fly stopped at the
gate at Hogglestock Parsonage, and out of it there came two men. One
was dressed in ordinary black clothes, and seemed from his bearing
to be a respectable man of the middle class of life. He was, however,
the superintendent of police for the Silverbridge district. The other
man was a policeman, pure and simple, with the helmet-looking hat
which has lately become common, and all the ordinary half-military
and wholly disagreeable outward adjuncts of the profession.
"Wilkins," said the superintendent, "likely enough I shall want you,
for they tell me the gent is uncommon strange. But if I don't call
you when I come out, just open the door like a servant, and mount up
on the b