"Thanks," she said, offering her hand. "I don't think I need bother about Miss Horne, but it was very kind of you to tell me. Thanks very much," and with a wave of her stick Sylvia walked pensively along into the village. As she passed Mr. Dorward's cottage she rattled her stick on his gate till he looked out from a window in the thatch, like a bird disturbed on its nest. "Hullo, old owl!" Sylvia cried. "Come down a minute. I want to say something to you." The vicar presently came blinking out into the sunlight of the garden. "Look here," she said, "do you know that those two old villains in Oaktown are spreading it about that you and I are having a love-affair? Haven't you got a prescription for that sort of thing in your church business? Can't you curse them with bell, book, and candle, or something? I'll supply the bell, if you'll supply the rest of the paraphernalia." Dorward shook his head. "Can't be done. Cursing is the prerogative of bishops. Not on the best terms with my bishop, I'm afraid. Last time he sent for me I had to spend the night and I left a rosary under my pillow. He was much pained, my spies at the Palace tell me." "Well, if _you_ don't mind, I don't mind," she said. "All right. So long." Three days later, an anonymous post-card was sent to Sylvia, a vulgar Temptation of St. Anthony; and a week afterward Philip suddenly flung a letter down before her which he told her to read. It was an ill-spelled ungrammatical screed, which purported to warn Philip of his wife's behavior, enumerated the hours she had spent alone with Dorward either in his cottage or in the church, and wound up with the old proverb of there being none so blind as those who won't see. Sylvia blushed while she read it, not for what it said about herself, but for the vile impulse that launched this smudged and scrabbled impurity. "That's a jolly thing to get at breakfast," Philip said. "Beastly," she agreed. "And your showing it to me puts you on a level with the sender." "I thought it would be a good lesson for you," he said. "A lesson?" she repeated. "Yes, a lesson that one can't behave exactly as one likes, particularly in the country among a lot of uneducated peasants." "But I don't understand," Sylvia went on. "Did you show me this filthy piece of paper with the idea of asking me to change my manner of life?" "I showed it to you in order to impress upon you that people talk, and that you owe it to me to keep their tongues quiet." "What do you want me to do?" "Something perfectly simple," Philip said. "I want you to give up visiting Dorward in his cottage and, as you have no religious inclinations, I should like you to avoid his church." "And that's why you showed me this anonymous letter?" He nodded. "In fact you're going to give it your serious attention?" she continued.