ill know it."

"What do I care for everybody?" she said. "It is not that I am ashamed of
myself."

"No, dearest; nor am I,--ashamed of myself or of you. But there will be
bitter words, and bitter words will produce bitter looks and scant
respect. How would it be with you if the boys looked at you as though
they thought ill of you?"

"They would not;--oh, they would not!"

"Or the servants,--if they reviled you?"

"Could it come to that?"

"It must not come to that. But it is as the Doctor said himself just
now;--a man cannot isolate the morals, the manners, the ways of his life
from the morals of others. Men, if they live together, must live together
by certain laws."

"Then there can be no hope for us."

"None that I can see, as far as Bowick is concerned. We are too closely
joined in our work with other people. There is not a boy here with whose
father and mother and sisters we are not more or less connected. When I
was preaching in the church, there was not one in the parish with whom I
was not connected. Would it do, do you think, for a priest to preach
against drunkenness, whilst he himself was a noted drunkard?"

"Are we like that?"

"It is not what the drunken priest might think of himself, but what others
might think of him. It would not be with us the position which we know
that we hold together, but that which others would think it to be. If I
were in Dr. Wortle's case, and another were to me as I am to him, I should
bid him go."

"You would turn him away from you; him and his--wife?"

"I should. My first duty would be to my parish and to my school. If I
could befriend him otherwise I would do so;--and that is what I expect
from Dr. Wortle. We shall have to go, and I shall be forced to approve of
our dismissal."

In this way Mr. Peacocke came definitely and clearly to a conclusion in
his own mind. But it was very different with Dr. Wortle. The story so
disturbed him, that during the whole of that afternoon he did not attempt
to turn his mind to any other subject. He even went so far as to send
over to Mr. Puddicombe and asked for some assistance for the afternoon
service on the following day. He was too unwell, he said, to preach
himself, and the one curate would have the two entire services unless Mr.
Puddicombe could help him. Could Mr. Puddicombe come himself and see him
on the Sunday afternoon? This note he sent away by a messenger, who came
back with a reply, saying th