the speaker. "I
don't want to go into that," he said. "A man never can say what his
intentions may be six months hence."

"But if I were to refuse to speak of my life in America," said Mr.
Peacocke, "and thus to decline to comply with what I must confess would be
no more than a rational requirement on your part, how then would it be
with myself and my wife in regard to the school?"

"It would make no difference whatever," said the Doctor.

"There is a story to tell," said Mr. Peacocke, very slowly.

"I am sure that it cannot be to your disgrace."

"I do not say that it is,--nor do I say that it is not. There may be
circumstances in which a man may hardly know whether he has done right or
wrong. But this I do know,--that, had I done otherwise, I should have
despised myself. I could not have done otherwise and have lived."

"There is no man in the world," said the Doctor, earnestly, "less anxious
to pry into the secrets of others than I am. I take things as I find
them. If the cook sends me up a good dish I don't care to know how she
made it. If I read a good book, I am not the less gratified because there
may have been something amiss with the author."

"You would doubt his teaching," said Mr. Peacocke, "who had gone astray
himself."

"Then I must doubt all human teaching, for all men have gone astray. You
had better hold your tongue about the past, and let me tell those who ask
unnecessary questions to mind their own business."

"It is very odd, Doctor," said Mr. Peacocke, "that all this should have
come from you just now."

"Why odd just now?"

"Because I had been turning it in my mind for the last fortnight whether I
ought not to ask you as a favour to listen to the story of my life. That
I must do so before I could formally accept the curacy I had determined.
But that only brought me to the resolution of refusing the office. I
think,--I think that, irrespective of the curacy, it ought to be told.
But I have not quite made up my mind."

"Do not suppose that I am pressing you."

"Oh no; nor would your pressing me influence me. Much as I owe to your
undeserved kindness and forbearance, I am bound to say that. Nothing can
influence me in the least in such a matter but the well-being of my wife,
and my own sense of duty. And it is a matter in which I can unfortunately
take counsel from no one. She, and she alone, besides myself, knows the
circumstances, and she is so forgetful of herself tha