nder, Fanny, that you can bear to stay
in the room with me."

"Mark, dearest Mark, my own dear, dearest husband! who is to be true
to you, if I am not? You shall not turn from me. How can anything
like this make a difference between you and me?" And then she threw
her arms round his neck and embraced him. It was a terrible morning
to him, and one of which every incident will dwell on his memory to
the last day of his life. He had been so proud in his position--had
assumed to himself so prominent a standing--had contrived, by some
trick which he had acquired, to carry his head so high above the
heads of neighbouring parsons. It was this that had taken him among
great people, had introduced him to the Duke of Omnium, had procured
for him the stall at Barchester. But how was he to carry his head
now? What would the Arabins and Grantlys say? How would the bishop
sneer at him, and Mrs. Proudie and her daughters tell of him in all
their quarters? How would Crawley look at him--Crawley, who had
already once had him on the hip? The stern severity of Crawley's face
loomed upon him now. Crawley, with his children half naked, and his
wife a drudge, and himself half starved, had never had a bailiff in
his house at Hogglestock. And then his own curate, Evans, whom he had
patronized, and treated almost as a dependant--how was he to look his
curate in the face and arrange with him for the sacred duties of the
next Sunday? His wife still stood by him, gazing into his face; and
as he looked at her and thought of her misery, he could not control
his heart with reference to the wrongs which Sowerby had heaped on
him. It was Sowerby's falsehood and Sowerby's fraud which had brought
upon him and his wife this terrible anguish.

"If there be justice on earth he will suffer for it yet," he said at
last, not speaking intentionally to his wife, but unable to repress
his feelings.

"Do not wish him evil, Mark; you may be sure he has his own sorrows."

"His own sorrows! No; he is callous to such misery as this. He has
become so hardened in dishonesty that all this is mirth to him. If
there be punishment in heaven for falsehood--"

"Oh, Mark, do not curse him!"

"How am I to keep myself from cursing when I see what he has brought
upon you?"

"'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,'" answered the young wife, not
with solemn, preaching accent, as though bent on reproof, but with
the softest whisper into his ear. "Leave that to Him, Mark; and f