rol and who have means at command. Had he remained as a
curate till that age, subject in all his movements to the eye of
a superior, he would, we may say, have put his name to no bills,
have ridden after no hounds, have seen nothing of the iniquities of
Gatherum Castle. There are men of twenty-six as fit to stand alone
as ever they will be--fit to be prime ministers, heads of schools,
Judges on the Bench--almost fit to be bishops; but Mark Robarts had
not been one of them. He had within him many aptitudes for good, but
not the strengthened courage of a man to act up to them. The stuff of
which his manhood was to be formed had been slow of growth, as it is
with many men; and, consequently, when temptation was offered to him,
he had fallen. But he deeply grieved over his own stumbling, and from
time to time, as his periods of penitence came upon him, he resolved
that he would once more put his shoulder to the wheel as became one
who fights upon earth that battle for which he had put on the armour.
Over and over again did he think of those words of Mr. Crawley, and
now as he walked up and down the path, crumpling Mr. Sowerby's letter
in his hand, he thought of them again--"It is a terrible falling off;
terrible in the fall, but doubly terrible through that difficulty
of returning." Yes; that is a difficulty which multiplies itself
in a fearful ratio as one goes on pleasantly running down the
path--whitherward? Had it come to that with him that he could not
return--that he could never again hold up his head with a safe
conscience as the pastor of his parish? It was Sowerby who had led
him into this misery, who had brought on him this ruin? But then
had not Sowerby paid him? Had not that stall which he now held in
Barchester been Sowerby's gift? He was a poor man now--a distressed,
poverty-stricken man; but nevertheless he wished with all his
heart that he had never become a sharer in the good things of the
Barchester chapter. "I shall resign the stall," he said to his wife
that night. "I think I may say that I have made up my mind as to
that."

"But, Mark, will not people say that it is odd?"

"I cannot help it--they must say it. Fanny, I fear that we shall have
to bear the saying of harder words than that."

"Nobody can ever say that you have done anything that is unjust or
dishonourable. If there are such men as Mr. Sowerby--"

"The blackness of his fault will not excuse mine." And then again he
sat silent, hiding hi