Her voice had been carefully lowered in tone, but David Stephens heard the first part of the conversation with vivid distinctness. Every word sank into his consciousness, not as something new,--for the subject was rarely absent from his thoughts,--but because they seemed to offer him a new opportunity for arguing the case, and for proving to himself yet again and again that he had done well in keeping silence about the letter. A strange complication existed in his mind. The self-deception which ensnared him was not that self-deception which conceals itself under false colours, for when he formed his resolution it was with the feeling that he was forever bidding farewell to his own peace of mind,-- the voluntary acceptance of a crushing burden. It is difficult to conceive such a state, but there is no doubt that it existed in him,-- whether the result of a too self-reliant creed, or owing to a stronger impulse of resistance than obedience, or to other of those secret springs which move men's actions. In his struggle with Anthony Miles, his opponent had become a very embodiment of all the powers that league themselves against good, especially the good of other men's souls. He had first heard him spoken of slightingly, without remembering the answer to the reproach which he might have afforded; but directly it flashed upon him he opened a pocket-book, in which were placed the few and tiny atoms of paper which he had preserved with the intention of examining, and had since forgotten. And then began the contest. Here in his hands he held, as he acknowledged, the means of clearing Anthony so as to re-establish him completely in the eyes of other men. But Anthony, triumphant and successful, represented a great antagonistic force to what David held to be his mission, and to forward which he would have thankfully endured even to the point of martyrdom. Anthony, on the contrary, with the suspicion of a dishonourable deed clinging to him, lost half his power, would cease to influence, and might no longer succeed in impressing his opinions upon Maddox, whose newly stirred fears inclined him to turn to Stephens, while an old feeling of respect yet bound him strongly to the Church, personified by the Vicar's family. He was conscious of weighing a sin in himself against what seemed the advantage of feeble, starving souls, and he shrank from the burden with a cry of anguish, which--blame him as you will--had in it no creeping taint of hypocrisy. Only at rare times could he accept the excuses offered to his conscience,--that it was no crime of which Anthony was accused, that his interference would prove useless,--the truth generally stood out in keen cold outlines, and he would acknowledge to himself that he had done an accursed thing. Yet he would have held it a worse sin to have cast it from him. It was to save others. He might suffer; he might have lost his own soul,--he acknowledged it,--but it was that