rms of intimacy, had now come to such a phase of life that
he had given over speaking of himself as an honest man. He had become
so used to suspicion that he argued of it as of a thing of course. He
knew that no one could trust either his spoken or his written word,
and he was content to speak and to write without attempt to hide this
conviction. And this was the man whom he had been so glad to call
his friend; for whose sake he had been willing to quarrel with Lady
Lufton, and at whose instance he had unconsciously abandoned so many
of the best resolutions of his life. He looked back now, as he walked
there slowly, still holding the letter in his hand, to the day when
he had stopped at the school-house and written his letter to Mr.
Sowerby, promising to join the party at Chaldicotes. He had been so
eager then to have his own way, that he would not permit himself to
go home and talk the matter over with his wife. He thought also of
the manner in which he had been tempted to the house of the Duke of
Omnium, and the conviction on his mind at the time that his giving
way to that temptation would surely bring him to evil. And then he
remembered the evening in Sowerby's bedroom, when the bill had been
brought out, and he had allowed himself to be persuaded to put his
name upon it--not because he was willing in this way to assist his
friend, but because he was unable to refuse. He had lacked the
courage to say, "No," though he knew at the time how gross was the
error which he was committing. He had lacked the courage to say,
"No," and hence had come upon him and on his household all this
misery and cause for bitter repentance.

I have written much of clergymen, but in doing so I have endeavoured
to portray them as they bear on our social life rather than to
describe the mode and working of their professional careers. Had I
done the latter I could hardly have steered clear of subjects on
which it has not been my intention to pronounce an opinion, and I
should either have laden my fiction with sermons or I should have
degraded my sermons into fiction. Therefore I have said but little
in my narrative of this man's feelings or doings as a clergyman. But
I must protest against its being on this account considered that Mr.
Robarts was indifferent to the duties of his clerical position. He
had been fond of pleasure and had given way to temptation,--as is
so customarily done by young men of six-and-twenty, who are placed
beyond cont