"Was it selfish? I suppose so." His face clouds again: a sort of reckless defiance shadows it. "You must not expect much from me," he says, slowly: "they don't accredit me with any good nowadays." "My dear fellow," says the vicar, quietly, "there is something wrong with you, or you would not so speak. I don't ask you now what it is: you shall tell me when and where you please. I only entreat you to believe that no one, knowing you as I do, could possibly think anything of you but what is kind and good and true." Branscombe draws his breath quickly. His pale face flushes; and a gleam, that is surely born of tears, shines in his eyes. Clarissa, who, up to this, has been talking to some of the children, comes up to him at this moment and slips her hand through his arm. Is he not almost her brother? Only his wife stands apart, and, with white lips and dry eyes and a most miserable heart, watches him without caring--or daring--to go near to him. She is silent, _distraite_, and has altogether forgotten the fact of Kennedy's existence (though he still stands close beside her),--a state of things that young gentleman hardly affects. "Has your class been too much for you? Or do other things--or people--distress you?" he asks, presently, in a meaning tone. "Because you have not uttered one word for quite five minutes." "You have guessed correctly: some people do distress me--after a time," says Mrs. Branscombe, so pointedly that Kennedy takes the hint, and, shaking hands with her somewhat stiffly, disappears through the door-way. "Oh, yes," the vicar is saying to Clarissa, in a glad tone, that even savors of triumph, "the Batesons have given up the Methodist chapel and have come back to me. They have forgiven about the bread, though they made a heavy struggle for it. Mrs. Redmond and I put our heads together and wondered what we should do, and if we couldn't buy anything there so as to make up for the loss of the daily loaves, because she would not consent to poison the children." "And you would!" says Clarissa, reproachfully. "Oh, what a terrible admission!" "We won't go into that, my dear Clarissa, if you please," says the vicar, contritely. "There are moments in every life that one regrets. But the end of our cogitations was this: that we went down to the village,--Mrs. Redmond and I,--and, positively, for one bar of soap and a package of candles we bought them all back to their pew in church. You wouldn't have thought there was so much grace in soap and candles, would you?" says the vicar, with a curious gleam in his eyes that is half amusement, half contempt. Even Georgie laughs a little at this, and comes nearer to them, and stands close beside Clarissa, as if shy and uncertain, and glad to have a sure partisan so near to her,--all which is only additional pain to Dorian, who notices every lightest word and action of the woman he has married.