During the whole of that morning the Doctor did not come into the school. The school hours lasted from half past nine to twelve, during a portion of which time it was his practice to be there. But sometimes, on a Saturday, he would be absent, when it was understood generally that he was preparing his sermon for the Sunday. Such, no doubt, might be the case now; but there was a feeling among the boys that he was kept away by some other reason. It was known that during the hour of morning school Mr Peacocke had been occupied with that uncouth stranger, and some of the boys might have observed that the uncouth stranger had not taken himself altogether away from the premises. There was at any rate a general feeling that the uncouth stranger had something to do with the Doctor’s absence.

Mr Peacocke did his best to go on with the work as though nothing had occurred to disturb the usual tenor of his way, and as far as the boys were aware he succeeded. He was just as clear about his Greek verbs, just as incisive about that passage of Caesar, as he would have been had Colonel Lefroy remained on the other side of the water. But during the whole time he was exercising his mind in that painful process of thinking of two things at once. He was determined that Caesar should be uppermost; but it may be doubted whether he succeeded. At that very moment. Colonel Lefroy might be telling the Doctor that his Ella was in truth the wife of another man. At that moment the Doctor might be deciding in his anger that the sinful and deceitful man should no longer be “officer of his”. The hour was too important to him to leave his mind at his own disposal. Nevertheless he did his best. “Clifford, junior,” he said, “I shall never make you understand what Caesar says here or elsewhere if you do not give your entire mind to Caesar.”

“I do give my entire mind to Caesar,” said Clifford, junior.

“Very well; now go on and try again. But remember that Caesar wants all your mind.” As he said this he was revolving in his own mind how he would face the Doctor when the Doctor should look at him in his wrath. If the Doctor were in any degree harsh with him, he would hold his own against the Doctor as far as the personal contest might go. At twelve the boys went out for an hour before their dinner, and Lord Carstairs asked him to play a game of rackets.

“Not today, my lord,” he said.

“Is anything wrong with you?”

“Yes, something is very wrong.” They had strolled out of the building, and were walking up and down the gravel terrace in front when this was said.

“I knew something was wrong, because you called me my lord.”

“Yes, something is so wrong as to alter for me all the ordinary ways of my life. But I wasn’t thinking of it. It came by accident — just because I am so troubled.”

“What is it?”

“There has been a man here — a man whom I knew in America.”

“An enemy?”

“Yes — an enemy. One who is anxious to do me all the injury he can.”

“Are you in his power, Mr Peacocke?”

“No, thank God; not that. I am in no man’s power. He cannot do me any material harm. Anything which may happen would have happened whether he had come or not. But I am unhappy.”

“I wish I knew.”

“So do I— with all my heart. I wish you knew; I wish you knew. I would that all the world knew. But we shall live through it, no doubt. And if we do not, what matter. “Nil conscire sibi — nulla pallescere culpa.” That is all that is necessary to a man. I have done nothing of which I repent — nothing that I would not do again; nothing of which I am ashamed to speak as far as the judgment of other men is concerned. Go, now. They are making up sides for cricket. Perhaps I can tell you more before the evening is over.”

Both Mr and Mrs Peacocke were accustomed to dine with the boys at one, when Carstairs, being a private pupil, only had his lunch. But on this occasion she did not come into the dining-room. “I don’t think I can today,” she said, when he bade her to take courage, and not be altered more than she could help, in her outward carriage, by the misery of her present circumstances. “I could not eat if I were there, and then they would look at me.”

“If it be so, do not attempt it. There is no necessity. What I mean is, that the less one shrinks the less will be the suffering. It is the man who shivers on the brink that is cold, and not he who plunges into the water. If it were over — if the first brunt of it were over, I could find means to comfort you.”

He went through the dinner, as he had done the Caesar, eating the roast mutton and the baked potatoes, and the great plateful of currant pie that was brought to him. He was fed and nourished, no doubt, but it may be doubtful whether he knew much of the flavour of what he ate. But before the dinner was quite ended, before he had said the grace which it was always his duty to pronounce, there came a message to him from the rectory. “The Doctor would be glad to see him as soon as dinner was done.” He waited very calmly till the proper moment should come for the grace, and then, very calmly, he took his way over to the house. He was certain now that Lefroy had been with the Doctor, because he was sent for considerably before the time fixed for the interview.

It was his chief resolve to hold his own before the Doctor. The Doctor, who could read a character well, had so read that of Mr Peacocke as to have been aware from the first that no censure, no fault-finding, would be possible if the connection were to be maintained. Other ushers, other curates, he had occasionally scolded. He had been very careful never even to seem to scold Mr Peacocke. Mr Peacocke had been aware of it too — aware that he could not endure it, and aware also that the Doctor avoided any attempt at it. He had known that, as a consequence of this, he was bound to be more than ordinarily prompt in the performance of all his duties. The man who will not endure censure has to take care that he does not deserve it. Such had been this man’s struggle, and it had been altogether successful. Each of the two understood the other, and each respected the other. Now their position must be changed. It was hardly possible, Mr Peacocke thought, as he entered the house, that he should not be rebuked with grave severity, and quite out of the question that he should bear any rebuke at all.

The library at the rectory was a spacious and handsome room, in the centre of which stood a large writing-table, at which the Doctor was accustomed to sit when he was at work — facing the door, with a bow-window at his right hand. But he rarely remained there when anyone was summoned into the room, unless someone were summoned with whom he meant to deal in a spirit of severity. Mr Peacocke would be there perhaps three or four times a week, and the Doctor would always get up from his chair and stand, or seat himself elsewhere in the room, and would probably move about with vivacity, being a fidgety man of quick motions, who sometimes seemed as though he could not hold his own body still for a moment. But now when Mr Peacocke entered the room he did not leave his place at the table. “Would you take a chair?” he said; “there is something that we must talk about.”

“Colonel Lefroy has been with you, I take it.”

“A man calling himself by that name has been here. Will you not take a chair?”

“I do not know that it will be necessary. What he has told you — what I suppose he has told you — is true.”

“You had better at any rate take a chair. I do not believe that what he has told me is true.”

“But it is.”

“I do not believe that what he has told me is true. Some of it cannot, I think, be true. Much of it is not so — unless I am more deceived in you than I ever was in any man. At any rate sit down.” Then the schoolmaster did sit down. “He has made you out to be a perjured, wilful, cruel bigamist.”

“I have not been such,” said Peacocke, rising from his chair.

“One who has been willing to sacrifice a woman to his passion.”

“No; no.”

“Who deceived her by false witnesses.”

“Never.”

“And who has now refused to allow her to see her own husband’s brother, lest sh............