left behind and
deserted as well as virtue?"

"It ain't easy to leave disgrace behind, any ways. For ought I
knows a girl may be made right arter a while; but as for her
father, nothing 'll ever make him right again. It's in here, Muster
Fenwick,--in here. There's things as is hard on us; but when they
comes one can't send 'em away just because they is hardest of all to
bear. I'd a put up with aught, only this, and defied all Bull'ompton
to say as it broke me;--but I'm about broke now. If I hadn't more nor
a crust at home, nor a decent coat to my back, I'd a looked 'em all
square in the face as ever I did. But I can't look no man square
in the face now;--and as for other folk's girls, I can't bear 'em
near me,--no how. They makes me think of my own." Fenwick had now
turned his back to the miller, in order that he might wipe away his
tears without showing them. "I'm thinking of her always, Muster
Fenwick;--day and night. When the mill's agoing, it's all the same.
It's just as though there warn't nothing else in the whole world as I
minded to think on. I've been a man all my life, Muster Fenwick; and
now I ain't a man no more."

[Illustration: "It's in here, Muster Fenwick,--in here."]

Our friend the Vicar never before felt himself so utterly unable to
administer comfort in affliction. There was nothing on which he could
take hold. He could tell the man, no doubt, that beyond all this
there might be everlasting joy, not only for him, but for him and the
girl together;--joy which would be sullied by no touch of disgrace.
But there was a stubborn strength in the infidelity of this old Pagan
which was utterly impervious to any adjuration on that side. That
which he saw and knew and felt, he would believe; but he would
believe nothing else. He knew now that he was wounded and sore and
wretched, and he understood the cause. He knew that he must bear his
misery to the last, and he struggled to make his back broad for the
load. But even the desire for ease, which is natural to all men,
would not make him flinch in his infidelity. As he would not believe
when things went well with him, and when the comfort of hope for the
future was not imperatively needed for his daily solace,--so would he
not believe now, when his need for such comfort was so pressing.

The upshot of it all was, that the miller thought that he would take
his own daughter into Salisbury, and was desirous of breaking the
matter in this way to the friend