“Hoity-toity!” retorted my lord, recovering himself, “you are a fine man to talk of insults! And you in my living, without a shadow of title to it! You must have had some suspicion, sir, that all was not right.” “I think I can answer for Mr. Lindo, there!” interposed the curate, stepping forward for the first time. His face was deeply flushed, and he spoke hurriedly, not looking up; perhaps, because all eyes were on him. “When Mr. Lindo came here, I had reason to expect an older man. I heard by chance from him—I think it was on the evening of his arrival—that he had not long lost an uncle of the same name, and it occurred to me then as just possible that there might have been a mistake. But I particularly observed that he was perfectly free from any suspicion of that kind himself.” “Pooh! There is nothing in that!” replied the archdeacon snappishly. “I think there is!” cried the earl in triumph. “A great deal in it. If the idea occurred to a stranger, is it possible that the incumbent’s own mind could be free from it?” “Is it possible,” the rector answered viciously, a ring as of steel in his voice, “that a man who had had his dear friend’s death announced to him could forget the news in a year, and think of him as still alive?” The earl gasped with passion. By a tremendous effort he refrained from using bad words, and even forbore, in view of the alarmed looks of the ladies and the archdeacon’s hasty expostulation, to call his opponent, a villain or a scoundrel. He stammered only, “You—you—are you going to give up my living?” “No,” was the answer. “You are not?” “Certainly I am not!” the rector answered. “If you had treated me differently, Lord Dynmore,” he continued, speaking with his arms crossed and his lip curling with scorn and defiance, “my answer might have been different! Now, though the mistake has been with yourself or your people, you have accused me of fraud! You have treated me as an impostor! You have dared to ask me, though I have been ministering to the people in this parish for months, whether I am a clergyman! You have insulted me grossly, and, so doing, have put it out of my power to resign had I been so minded! And you may be sure I shall not resign.” He looked handsome enough as he flung down his defiance. But the earl cared nothing for his looks. “You will not?” he stuttered. “No! I acknowledge no authority whatever in you,” was the answer. “You are _functus officio_. I am subject to the bishop, and to him only.” “Give me my hat,” mumbled the peer, turning abruptly away; and, tugging up the collar of his fur coat, he began to grope about in a manner which at another time would have been laughable. “Give me my hat, some one,” he repeated. “Let me get out before I swear. I am _functus officio_, am I? I have never been so insulted in my life! Never, so help me heaven! Never! Let me get out!”