membered perfectly well to whom he had given the corals, and
resolved to seek out Tabitha the next morning to ascertain whether she
could possibly have owned such a trinket as well as his sister,--which at
present he very greatly doubted, though fervently hoping that she might.

XXIX

The effect upon Swithin of the interview with the Bishop had been a very
marked one. He felt that he had good ground for resenting that
dignitary's tone in haughtily assuming that all must be sinful which at
the first blush appeared to be so, and in narrowly refusing a young man
the benefit of a single doubt. Swithin's assurance that he would be able
to explain all some day had been taken in contemptuous incredulity.

'He may be as virtuous as his prototype Timothy; but he's an opinionated
old fogey all the same,' said St. Cleeve petulantly.

Yet, on the other hand, Swithin's nature was so fresh and ingenuous,
notwithstanding that recent affairs had somewhat denaturalized him, that
for a man in the Bishop's position to think him immoral was almost as
overwhelming as if he had actually been so, and at moments he could
scarcely bear existence under so gross a suspicion. What was his union
with Lady Constantine worth to him when, by reason of it, he was thought
a reprobate by almost the only man who had professed to take an interest
in him?

Certainly, by contrast with his air-built image of himself as a worthy
astronomer, received by all the world, and the envied husband of
Viviette, the present imputation was humiliating. The glorious light of
this tender and refined passion seemed to have become debased to
burlesque hues by pure accident, and his aesthetic no less than his ethic
taste was offended by such an anti-climax. He who had soared amid the
remotest grandeurs of nature had been taken to task on a rudimentary
question of morals, which had never been a question with him at all. This
was what the exigencies of an awkward attachment had brought him to; but
he blamed the circumstances, and not for one moment Lady Constantine.

Having now set his heart against a longer concealment he was disposed to
think that an excellent way of beginning a revelation of their marriage
would be by writing a confidential letter to the Bishop, detailing the
whole case. But it was impossible to do this on his own responsibility.
He still recognized the understanding entered into with Viviette, before
the marriage, to be as binding as ever,