In all these ways he, to whom change and adventure instinctively appealed, had been cut off from adventure; and adventure--even when it could not be called wrong--tempted him more than most people. To see himself in a tight place, and get out of it, meant self-realization; to find his way into unaccustomed circumstances, and fit them perfectly, was intellectual and moral training of a stimulating kind. During his days at College in the annual students’ rag on the Fifth of November, a plot had been formed by the anti-feminists to make a Guy Fawkes of him dressed as a woman preacher. And he had escaped by stealing a policeman’s helmet, truncheon, and overcoat, which were all much too large for him, and had then helped to batter the heads of the turbulent crowd which was out seeking for him and breaking the windows of the lodging-house where he was supposed to be. That was a memory which he very much enjoyed: he had then drawn blood for the first time and heard a skull crack under his inexpert handling of the truncheon which a trained policeman only employs in the way of kindness. His man had gone to hospital. And that was at a time, too, when Mr. Trimblerigg considered himself a pacifist. If the truth must be known he had more thoroughly enjoyed that brief hour of a violent laying-on of hands than the subsequent day of his ordination for which all the rest was a preparation. It had been more of an adventure. And there you have the key to the temptations of Mr. Trimblerigg. Neither then, nor subsequently did he ever wish to do any man wrong; but he did wish to experiment. And whether it was the thickness of a fellow-student’s skull, or the rise and fall of a market, or the gullibility of the common herd, or the pious employment of superstition for high and noble ends, or his own susceptibility to a woman’s charm, or hers the other way about--he never had any other aim or object, or desire, except to experiment so that he might get to know and manipulate human nature better, including his own. Life itself was for him the great experiment. And it so happened that at the very centre of his life was Caroline; and Caroline was dull. Therefore their marital relations were imperfect. It struck him one day that Caroline would be more interesting if he could make her jealous. Without giving her serious cause, he tried, and failed. But, in the process of his experiment, he engaged the affections of the instrument he employed much more than he intended.