“Confoundedly!” the rector answered, and proceeded to tell his story. Jack was surprised to find him at first more placable than he had expected, but presently he learned that this moderation was only assumed. The rector rose as he went on, and began to pace the room, and, the motion freeing his tongue, he gradually betrayed the indignation and resentment which he really felt. Jack asked him, with a view to clearing the ground, whether he had quite made up his mind not to resign, and was astonished by the force and anger with which he repudiated the thought of doing so. “Resign? No never!” he cried, standing still, and almost glaring at his companion. “Why should I? What have I done? Was it my mistake, that I am to suffer for it? Was it my fault, that for penalty I am to have the tenor of my life broken? Do you think I can go back to the Docks the same man I left them? I cannot. Nor is that all, or nearly all,” he added still more warmly—“I have been called a swindler and an impostor. Am I by resigning to plead guilty to the charge?” “No!” said Jack, himself catching fire, “certainly not! I did not intend for a moment to advise that course. I think you would be acting very foolishly if you resigned under these circumstances.” “I am glad of that,” the rector said, sitting down with a sigh of relief. “I feared you did not quite enter into my feelings.” “I do thoroughly,” the barrister answered, with feeling, “but I want to do more—I want to help you. You must not go into this business blindly, old man. And, first, I think you ought to take the archdeacon or some other clergyman into your confidence. Show him the whole of your case, I mean, and——” “And act upon his advice?” said the young rector, rebellion already flashing in his eye. “No, not necessarily,” the barrister answered, skilfully adapting his tone to the irritability of his patient. “Of course your _bona fides_ at the time you accepted the living is the point of importance to you, Lindo. You did not see their solicitors—the earl’s people, I mean—did you?” “No,” the rector answered somewhat sullenly. “Then their letter conveyed to you all you knew of the living and the offer?” “Precisely.” “Let us see them, then,” replied Jack, rising briskly from his chair. He had already determined to say nothing of the witness whom Mr. Bonamy had mentioned to him as asserting that the rector had bribed him. He knew enough of his friend to utterly disbelieve the story, and he considered it as told to him in confidence. “There is no time like the present,” he continued. “You have kept the letters, of course?” “They are here,” Lindo answered, rising also, and unlocking as he spoke the little cupboard among the books; “I made them into a packet and indorsed them soon after I came. They have been here ever since.”