n heavy to
the dean. But in striving to do this he had always failed, had
always suffered, and had generally been rebuked. Crawley would
attempt to argue with him as to the improper allotment of Church
endowments,--declaring that he did not do so with any reference
to his own circumstances, but simply because the subject was one
naturally interesting to clergymen. And this he would do, as he was
waving off with his hand offers of immediate assistance which were
indispensable. Then there had been scenes between the dean and Mrs
Crawley,--terribly painful,--and which had taken place in direct
disobedience to the husband's positive injunctions. "Sir," he had
once said to the dean, "I request that nothing may pass from your
hands to the hands of my wife." "Tush, tush," the dean had answered.
"I will have no tushing or pshawing on such a matter. A man's wife is
his very own, the breath of his nostril, the blood of his heart, the
rib from his body. It is for me to rule my wife, and I tell you that
I will not have it." After that the gifts had come from the hands of
Mrs. Arabin;--and then again, after that, in the direst hour of his
need, Crawley had himself come and taken money from the dean's hands!
The interview had been so painful that Arabin would hardly have been
able to count the money or to know of what it had consisted, had he
taken the notes and cheque out of the envelope in which his wife had
put them. Since that day the two had not met each other, and since
that day these new troubles had come. Arabin as yet knew but little
of the manner in which they had been borne, except that Crawley had
felt himself compelled to resign the living of Hogglestock. He knew
nothing of Mrs. Proudie's persecution, except what he gathered from
the fact of the clerical commission of which he had been informed;
but he could imagine that Mrs. Proudie would not lie easy on her bed
while a clergyman was doing duty almost under her nose, who was
guilty of the double offence of being accused of a theft, and of
having been put into his living by the dean. The dean, therefore,
as he rode on, pictured to himself his old friend in a terrible
condition. And it might be that even now that condition would hardly
have been improved. He was no longer suspected of being a thief; but
he could have no money in his pocket; and it might well be that his
sufferings would have made him almost mad.

The dean also got down and left his horse at a farmyard,--