As the days passed by, however, bringing only the sickness of hope deferred and tidings of the rector’s sturdy determination to hold what he had got, the curate began, not in a mere passing mood, but, on grounds of reason and calculation, to lose hope. Every tongue in the town was wagging about Lindo. My lord was, or was supposed to be, setting the engines of the law in motion. Mr. Bonamy was believed, probably with less reason, to be contemplating an appeal to the bishop and the Court of Arches. In a word, all the misfortunes which Clode had foreseen were accumulating about the devoted head; and yet—and yet it was a question whether the owner of the head was a penny the worse! Perhaps some day he might be. The earl was a great man, with a long purse, and he might yet have his way. But this was not likely to happen, as the curate now began to see, until long after the Rev. Stephen Clode’s connection with the parish and claim upon the living should have become things of the past. On the top of this conviction, which sufficiently depressed him, came the news of the colliery accident—news which did not reach him until late at night. It plunged him into the depth’s of despair. He cursed the ill-luck which had withheld from him the opportunity of distinguishing himself, and had granted it to the rector. He saw how fatally the affair would strengthen the latter’s hands. And in effect he gave up. He resigned himself to despair. He had not the spirit to go out, but sat until long after noon, brooding miserably over the fire, his table littered with unremoved breakfast things, and his mind in a similar state of slovenly disorder. That was a day, a miserable day, he long remembered. About half-past two he made an effort to pull himself together. Mechanically putting a book in his pocket, he took his hat and went out, with the intention of paying two or three visits in his district. He had pride enough left to excite him to the effort, and sufficient sense to recognize its supreme importance. But, even so, before he reached the street he was dreaming again—the old dreary dreams. He started when a voice behind him said brusquely, “Going your rounds, I see! Well, there is nothing like sticking to business, whatever is on foot. Shall I have to congratulate you this time?” He knew the voice and turned round, a scowl on his dark face. The speaker was Gregg—Gregg wearing an air of unusual jauntiness and gaiety. It fell from him, however, as he met the other’s eyes, leaving him, metaphorically speaking, naked and ashamed. The doctor stood in wholesome dread of the curate’s sharp tongue and biting irony, nor would he have accosted him in so free-and-easy a manner now, had he not been a little lifted above himself by something he had just learned. “Congratulate me? What do you mean?” Clode replied, turning on him with the uncompromising directness which is more “upsetting” to a man uncertain of himself than any retort, however discourteous.