That same evening, Mr. Silas Pence was seated in his shabby sitting-room, making notes for his next Sunday sermon. He occupied lodgings in a lonely cottage on the verge of the common, and did so because his landlady was a member of the Little Bethel congregation, who boarded and lodged him cheaply in order to have the glory of entertaining the minister. The landlady was a heavy-footed, heavy-faced woman, with two great hulking sons, and occupied the back part of the premises. Silas inhabited the best sitting-room and the most comfortable bedroom. There was no fence round the front of the cottage, although there was a garden of vegetables at the back, so the sitting-room window looked straight out on to the purple heather and golden gorse of the waste land. An artist would have delighted in the view, but Silas had no eye for anything beautiful in nature, and paid very little attention to the changing glories of the year. The lodging was cheap, and the situation healthy, so he was perfectly satisfied. On this especial evening, the young preacher sat at the red-repp covered table, reading his Bible and making his notes. It was after ten o'clock, and his landlady was asleep, as were her two sons, both agricultural labourers worn out with the heavy toils of the day. The sitting-room window was wide open, and the blind was up, so that the cool night breeze was wafted faintly into the somewhat stuffy room, which was crowded with unnecessary furniture. Silas made a few notes, then threw down his pencil and sighed, resting his weary head on his hand. Pence was by no means a bad man, but he was weak and excitable. The pursuit of Bella aroused the worst part of his nature, and made him think, say, and do much which he condemned. The better part of him objected to a great deal which he did, but the tide of his passion hurried him away and could not be checked by the dykes of common-sense. At times--and this was one of them--he bitterly blamed himself for giving way to the desire for Hepzibah, as he called Bella Huxham, in his own weak mind. But, sane in all other ways, he was insane on this one point, and felt that he would jeopardise his chance of salvation to call her wife. Nevertheless he was sane enough to know his insanity, and would have given much to root out the fierce love which was destroying his life.