etty straight till my husband died
lately. But you--you were decidedly wrong!"

"No," said Phillotson, with sudden testiness. "I would rather not
talk of this, but--I am convinced I did only what was right, and
just, and moral. I have suffered for my act and opinions, but I hold
to them; though her loss was a loss to me in more ways than one!"

"You lost your school and good income through her, did you not?"

"I don't care to talk of it. I have recently come back here--to
Marygreen. I mean."

"You are keeping the school there again, just as formerly?"

The pressure of a sadness that would out unsealed him. "I am there,"
he replied. "Just as formerly, no. Merely on sufferance. It was
a last resource--a small thing to return to after my move upwards,
and my long indulged hopes--a returning to zero, with all its
humiliations. But it is a refuge. I like the seclusion of the
place, and the vicar having known me before my so-called eccentric
conduct towards my wife had ruined my reputation as a schoolmaster,
he accepted my services when all other schools were closed against
me. However, although I take fifty pounds a year here after taking
above two hundred elsewhere, I prefer it to running the risk of
having my old domestic experiences raked up against me, as I should
do if I tried to make a move."

"Right you are. A contented mind is a continual feast. She has done
no better."

"She is not doing well, you mean?"

"I met her by accident at Kennetbridge this very day, and she is
anything but thriving. Her husband is ill, and she anxious. You
made a fool of a mistake about her, I tell 'ee again, and the harm
you did yourself by dirting your own nest serves you right, excusing
the liberty."

"How?"

"She was innocent."

"But nonsense! They did not even defend the case!"

"That was because they didn't care to. She was quite innocent of
what obtained you your freedom, at the time you obtained it. I saw
her just afterwards, and proved it to myself completely by talking to
her."

Phillotson grasped the edge of the spring-cart, and appeared to be
much stressed and worried by the information. "Still--she wanted to
go," he said.

"Yes. But you shouldn't have let her. That's the only way with
these fanciful women that chaw high--innocent or guilty. She'd have
come round in time. We all do! Custom does it! It's all the same
in the end! However, I think she's fond of her man still--whatever