"Have you come to tell me your decision--to go or stay?" asked the Rector, neglecting to answer the question. "Not this morning. My decision is not yet made. I came to tell you how very ill Jael Batty is. I'm not at all sure that she will get over this bout." "Oh," said the Rector, in a slighting tone, as if Jael Batty had no right to intrude herself into more momentous conversation. "Jael Batty is careless and indifferent in her duties, anything but what she ought to be, and makes her deafness an excuse for not coming to church. I'll try and get out to see her in the course of the day. She is always having these attacks. What we were speaking of was your friendship with Miss Rymer." Herbert Tanerton, as I have said, meant to be kind, and I believe he had people's welfare at heart; but he had a severe way of saying things that seemed to take all the kindness out of his words. He was a great stickler for "duty," and if once he considered it was his duty to tell a fellow of his faults, tell he did, face to face, in the most uncompromising manner. He had decided that it was his duty to hold forth to Mr. Sale, and he plunged into the discourse without ceremony. The curate did not seem in the least put out, but talked back again, quietly and freely. I sat balancing the tongs over the fender and listening. "Miss Rymer is not my equal, you say," observed Sale. "I don't know that. Her father was a curate's son: I am a curate's son. Circumstances, it would seem, kept Mr. Rymer down in the world. Perhaps they will keep me down--I cannot tell." "But you are a gentleman in position, a clergyman; Rymer served customers," retorted Mr. Tanerton, harping upon that _bête noire_ of his, the chemist's shop. "Can't you perceive the difference? A gentleman ought to be a gentleman." "Thomas Rymer was a gentleman, as I hear, in mind and manners and conduct; educated, and courteous, and----" "He was one of the truest gentlemen I ever met," I could not help putting in, though it interrupted the curate. "For my part, when speaking with him I forgot the counter he served at." "And a true Christian, I was about to say," added Mr. Sale. There was a pause. Herbert Tanerton, who had been fidgeting in his chair, spoke: "Am I mistaken in assuming that your acceptance of this chaplaincy depends upon Miss Rymer?" "No, you are not mistaken," said Sale, readily. "It does depend upon her. If she will go with me--my wife--I shall accept it; if she will not, I remain at home." "Margaret is as nice as her father was; she is exactly like him," I said. "Were I you, Mr. Sale, I should just take her out of the place and end it." "But if she won't come with me?" returned he, with a half-smile. "She is wanted at home," observed Herbert Tanerton, casting a severe look at me with his cold light eyes. "That shop could not get on without her." But Sale interrupted: