ng all this time it made his wife miserable. She had
literally grown thin under the infliction of the new chapel. For more
than a fortnight she had refused to visit the front gate of her own
house. To and from church she always went by the garden wicket; but
in going to the school, she had to make a long round to avoid the
chapel,--and this round she made day after day. Fenwick himself,
still hoping that there might be some power of fighting, had written
to an enthusiastic archdeacon, a friend of his, who lived not very
far distant. The Archdeacon had consulted the Bishop,--really
troubled deeply about the matter,--and the Bishop had taken upon
himself, with his own hands, to write words of mild remonstrance to
the Marquis. "For the welfare of the parish generally," said the
Bishop, "I venture to make this suggestion to your lordship, feeling
sure that you will do anything that may not be unreasonable to
promote the comfort of the parishioners." In this letter he made no
allusion to his late correspondence with the Marquis as to the sins
of the Vicar. Nor did the Marquis in his reply allude to the former
correspondence. He expressed an opinion that the erection of a
place of Christian worship on an open space outside the bounds of a
clergyman's domain ought not to be held to be objectionable by that
clergyman;--and that as he had already given the spot, he could not
retract the gift. These letters, however, had been written before the
first brick had been laid, and the world in that part of the country
was of opinion that the Marquis might have retracted his gift. After
this Mr. Fenwick found no ground whatever on which he could fight his
battle. He could only stand at his gateway, and look at the thing as
it rose above the ground, fascinated by its ugliness.

He was standing there once, about a month or five weeks after his
interview with Sam Brattle, just at the beginning of March, when he
was accosted by the Squire. Mr. Gilmore, through the winter,--ever
since he had heard that Mary Lowther's engagement with Walter
Marrable had been broken off,--had lived very much alone. He had been
pressed to come to the Vicarage, but had come but seldom, waiting
patiently till the time should come when he might again ask Mary to
be his wife. He was not so gloomy as he had been during the time the
engagement had lasted, but still he was a man much altered from his
former self. Now he came across the road, and spoke a word or two to