e went away from his
house having hardly spoken a word to his wife after the speech which
he made about his duty to his parish.

I think that at this time nobody saw clearly the working of his
mind,--not even his wife, who studied it very closely, who gave him
credit for all his high qualities, and who had gradually learned to
acknowledge to herself that she must distrust his judgment in many
things. She knew that he was good and yet weak, that he was afflicted
by false pride and supported by true pride, that his intellect was
still very bright, yet so dismally obscured on many sides as almost
to justify people in saying that he was mad. She knew that he was
almost a saint, and yet almost a castaway through vanity and hatred
of those above him. But she did not know that he knew all this of
himself also. She did not comprehend that he should be hourly telling
himself that people were calling him mad and were so calling him with
truth. It did not occur to her that he could see her insight into
him. She doubted as to the way in which he had got the cheque,--never
imagining, however, that he had wilfully stolen it;--thinking that
his mind had been so much astray as to admit of his finding it and
using it without wilful guilt,--thinking also, alas, that a man who
could so act was hardly fit for such duties as those which were
entrusted to him. But she did not dream that this was precisely his
own idea of his own state and of his own position;--that he was
always inquiring of himself whether he was not mad; whether, if mad,
he was not bound to lay down his office; that he was ever taxing
himself with improper hostility to the bishop,--never forgetting for
a moment his wrath against the bishop and the bishop's wife, still
comforting himself with his triumph over the bishop and the bishop's
wife,--but for all that, accusing himself of a heavy sin and
proposing to himself to go to the palace and there humbly to
relinquish his clerical authority. Such a course of action he was
proposing to himself, but not with any realised idea that he would
so act. He was as a man who walks along a river's bank, thinking of
suicide, calculating now best he might kill himself,--whether the
river does not offer an opportunity too good to be neglected, telling
himself that for many reasons he had better do so, suggesting to
himself that the water is pleasant and cool, and that his ears would
soon be deaf to the harsh noises of the world,--but yet