She had planted the rose at home, where it had grown and flourished in a wonderful manner, and every June the great mass of leaves and shoots still broke out into a passionate splendour of scent and scarlet colour, as if in its root and fibres there still burnt the anger and thwarted desire of that Italian lover. Of course the old _Conte_ must have died many years ago; she had forgotten his name, and had even forgotten the name of the mountain city that she had stayed in, after first seeing it twinkling at dawn in the sky, like a nest of stars. _The Vicar of Lynch_ When I heard through country gossip of the strange happening at Lynch which had caused so great a scandal, and led to the disappearance of the deaf old Vicar of that remote village, I collected all the reports I could about it, for I felt that at the centre of this uncomprehending talk and wild anecdote there was something with more meaning than a mere sudden outbreak of blasphemy and madness. It appeared that the old Vicar, after some years spent in the quiet discharge of his parochial duties, had been noticed to become more and more odd in his appearance and behaviour; and it was also said that he had gradually introduced certain alterations into the Church services. These had been vaguely supposed at the time to be of a High Church character, but afterwards they were put down to a growing mental derangement, which had finally culminated at that notorious Harvest Festival, when his career as a clergyman of the Church of England had ended. On this painful occasion the old man had come into church outlandishly dressed, and had gone through a service with chanted gibberish and unaccustomed gestures, and prayers which were unfamiliar to his congregation. There was also talk of a woman's figure on the altar, which the Vicar had unveiled at a solemn moment in this performance; and I also heard echo of other gossip--gossip that was, however, authoritatively contradicted and suppressed as much as possible--about the use of certain other symbols of a most unsuitable kind. Then a few days after the old man had disappeared--some of the neighbours believed that he was dead; some, that he was now shut up in an asylum for the insane. Such was the fantastic and almost incredible talk I listened to, but in which, as I say, I found much more meaning than my neighbours. For one thing, although they knew that the Vicar had come from Oxford to this remote College living, they knew nothing of his work and scholarly reputation in that University, and none of them had probably ever heard of--much less read--an important book which he had written, and which was the standard work on his special subject. To them he was simply a deaf, eccentric, and solitary clergyman; and I think I was the only person in the neighbourhood who had conversed with him on the subject concerning which he was the greatest living authority in England.