afraid of Lily Dale." From all which it may be seen
that Mrs. Arabin and John Eames had become very intimate on their way
home.

It was then arranged that he should call on Mr. Toogood that same
night or early next morning, and that he should come to the hotel at
twelve o'clock on the next day. Going along one of the passages he
passed two gentlemen in shovel hats, with very black new coats, and
knee-breeches; and Johnny could not but hear a few words which one
clerical gentleman said to the other. "She was a woman of great
energy, of wonderful spirit, but a firebrand, my lord,--a complete
firebrand!" Then Johnny knew that the Dean of A was talking to the
Bishop of B about the late Mrs. Proudie.

CHAPTER LXXI

Mr. Toogood at Silverbridge

We will now go back to Mr. Toogood as he started for Silverbridge, on
the receipt of Mrs. Arabin's telegram from Venice. "I gave cheque to
Mr. Crawley. It was part of a sum of money. Will write to Archdeacon
Grantly to-day, and return home at once." That was the telegram which
Mr. Toogood received at his office, and on receiving which he resolved
that he must start to Barchester immediately. "It isn't certainly
what you may call a paying business," he said to his partner, who
continued to grumble; "but it must be done all the same. If it don't
get into the ledger in one way it will in another." So Mr. Toogood
started for Silverbridge, having sent to his house in Tavistock
Square for a small bag, a clean shirt, and a toothbrush. And as he
went down in the railway-carriage, before he went to sleep, he turned
it all over in his mind. "Poor devil! I wonder whether any man ever
suffered so much before. And as for that woman,--it's ten thousand
pities that she should have died before she heard it. Talk of
heart-complaint; she'd have had a touch of heart-complaint if she had
known this!" Then, as he was speculating how Mrs. Arabin could have
become possessed of the cheque, he went to sleep.

He made up his mind that the first person to be seen was Mr. Walker,
and after that he would, if possible, go to Archdeacon Grantly. He
was at first minded to go at once out to Hogglestock; but when he
remembered how very strange Mr. Crawley was in all his ways, and
told himself professionally that telegrams were but bad sources of
evidence on which to depend for details, he thought that it would be
safer if he were first to see Mr. Walker. There would be very little
delay. In a day or two