The Doctor went up to London, and was told by his lawyers that an action for damages probably would lie. ““Amo” in the cool of the evening” certainly meant making love. There could be no doubt that allusion was made to Mrs Peacocke. To accuse a clergyman of a parish, and a schoolmaster, of making love to a lady so circumstanced as Mrs Peacocke, no doubt was libellous. Presuming that the libel could not be justified, he would probably succeed. “Justified!” said the Doctor, almost shrieking, to his lawyers; “I never said a word to the lady in my life except in pure kindness and charity. Every word might have been heard by all the world.” Nevertheless, had all the world been present, he would not have held her hand so tenderly or so long as he had done on a certain occasion which has been mentioned.

“They will probably apologise,” said the lawyer. Shall I be bound to accept their apology?”

“No; not bound; but you would have to show, if you went on with the action, that the damage complained of was of so grievous a nature that the apology would not salve it.”

“The damage has been already done,” said the Doctor, eagerly. “I have received the Bishop’s rebuke — a rebuke in which he has said that I have brought scandal upon the diocese.”

“Rebukes break no bones,” said the lawyer. Can you show that it will serve to prevent boys from coming to your school?”

“It may not improbably force me to give up the living. I certainly will not remain there subject to the censure of the Bishop. I do not in truth want any damages. I would not accept money. I only want to set myself right before the world.” It was then agreed that the necessary communication should be made by the lawyer to the newspaper proprietors, so as to put the matter in a proper train for the action.

After this the Doctor returned home, just in time to open his school with his diminished forces. At the last moment there was another defaulter, so that there were now no more than twenty pupils. The school had not been so low as this for the last fifteen years. There had never been less than eight-and-twenty before, since Mrs Stantiloup had first begun her campaign. It was heartbreaking to him. He felt as though he were almost ashamed to go into his own school. In directing his housekeeper to send the diminished orders to the tradesmen he was thoroughly ashamed of himself; in giving his directions to the usher as to the redivided classes he was thoroughly ashamed of himself. He wished that there was no school, and would have been contented now to give it all up, and to confine Mary’s fortune to 10,000 instead of 20,000, had it not been that he could not bear to confess that he was beaten. The boys themselves seemed almost to carry their tails between their legs, as though even they were ashamed of their own school. If, as was too probable, another half-dozen should go at Christmas, then the thing must be abandoned. And how could he go on as rector of the parish with the abominable empty building staring him in the face every moment of his life?

“I hope you are not really going to law,” said his wife to him.

“I must, my dear. I have no other way of defending my honour.”

“Go to law with the Bishop?”

“No, not with the Bishop.”

“But the Bishop would be brought into it?”

“Yes; he will certainly be brought into it.”

“And as an enemy. What I mean is, that he will be brought in very much against his own will.”

“Not a doubt about it,” said the Doctor. But he will have brought it altogether upon himself. How he can have condescended to send that scurrilous newspaper is more than I can understand. That one gentleman should have so treated another is to me incomprehensible. But that a bishop should have done so to a clergyman of his own diocese shakes all my old convictions. There is a vulgarity about it, a meanness of thinking, an aptitude to suspect all manner of evil, which I cannot fathom. What! did he really think that I was making love to the woman; did he doubt that I was treating her and her husband with kindness, as one human being is bound to treat another in affliction; did he believe, in his heart, that I sent the man away in order that I might have an opportunity for a wicked purpose of my own? It is impossible. When I think of myself and of him, I cannot believe it. That woman who has succeeded at last in stirring up all this evil against me — even she could not believe it. Her malice is sufficient to make her conduct intelligible — but there is no malice in the Bishop’s mind against me. He would infinitely sooner live with me on pleasant terms if he could justify his doing so to his conscience. He has been stirred to do this in the execution of some presumed duty. I do not accuse him of malice. But I do accuse him of a meanness of intellect lower than what I could have presumed to have been possible in a man so placed. I never thought him clever; I never thought him great; I never thought him even to be a gentleman, in the fullest sense of the word; but I did think he was a man. This is the performance of a creature not worthy to be called so.”

“Oh, Jeffrey, he did not believe all that.”

“What did he believe? When he read that article, did he see in it a true rebuke against a hypocrite, or did he see in it a scurrilous attack upon a brother clergyman, a neighbour, and a friend? If the latter, he certainly would not have been instigated by it to write to me such a letter as he did. He certainly would not have sent the paper to me had he felt it to contain a foul-mouthed calumny.”

“He wanted you to know what people of that sort were saying.”

“Yes; he wanted me to know that, and he wanted me to know also that the knowledge had come to me from my bishop. I should have thought evil of anyone who had sent me the vile ribaldry. But coming from him, it fills me with despair.”

“Despair!” she said, repeating his word.

“Yes; despair as to the condition of the Church when I see a man capable of such meanness holding so high place. ““Amo” in the cool of the evening”! That words such as those should have been sent to me by the Bishop, as showing what the “metropolitan press” of the day was saying about my conduct! Of course, my action will be against him — against the Bishop. I shall be bound to expose his conduct. What else can I do? There are things which a man cannot bear and live. Were I to put up with this I must leave the school, leave the parish — nay, leave the country. There is a stain upon me which I must wash out, or I cannot remain here.”

“No, no, no,” said his wife, embracing him.

““Amo” in the cool of the evening”! And that when, as God is my judge above me, I have done my best to relieve what has seemed to me the unmerited sorrows of two poor sufferers! Had it come from Mrs Stantiloup, it would, of course, have been nothing. I could have understood that her malice should have condescended to anything, however low. But from the Bishop!”

“How will you be the worse? Who will know?”

“I know it,” said he, striking his breast. I know it. The wound is here. Do you think that when a coarse libel is welcomed in the Bishop’s palace, and treated there as true, that it will not be spread abroad among other houses? When the Bishop has thought it necessary to send it me, what will other people do — others who are not bound to be just and righteous in their dealings with me as he is? ““Amo” in the cool of the evening”! Then he seized his hat and rushed out into the garden.

The gentleman who had written the paragraph certainly had had no idea that his words would have been thus effectual. The little joke had seemed to him to be good enough to fill a paragraph, and it had gone from him without further thought. Of the Doctor or of the lady he had conceived no idea whatsoever. Somebody else had said somewhere that a clergyman had sent a lady’s reputed husband away to look for another husband, while he and the lady remained together. The joke had not been much of a joke, but it had been enough. It had gone forth, and had now brought the whole palace of Broughton into grief, and had nearly driven our excellent Doctor mad! ““Amo” in the cool of the evening”! The words stuck to him like the shirt of Nessus, lacerating his very spirit. That words such as those should have been sent to him in a solemn sober spirit by the bishop of his diocese! It never occurred to him that he had, in truth, been imprudent when paying his visits alone to Mrs Peacocke.

It was late in the evening, and he wandered away up through the green rides of a wood the borders of which came down to the glebe fields. He had been boiling over with indignation while talking to his wife. But as soon as he was alone he endeavoured —............