“Then I have you authority for contradicting these rumours?”

The Vicar of Deadham groaned in the darkness, and rustled under the bedclothes.  His perplexity was great on being thus confronted by the time-honoured question as to how far, in the interests of public morality, it is justifiable for the private individual roundly to lie.  Finally he banked on compromise, that permanently presiding genius of the Church of England ‘as by law established.’

“You have me on the hip, my love,” he told his wife quite meekly.

But, as she began rather eagerly to speak, he stopped her.

“Let be, my dear Jane,” he bade her, “let be.  I neither deny or confirm the rumours to which I imagine you allude.  Silence is most becoming for us both.  Continue to assure any persons, ill-advised and evil-minded enough to approach you—­I trust they may prove but few—­that you have never heard a word of this subject.  You will never—­I can confidently promise you—­hear one from me.—­I shall make it my duty to preach on the iniquity of back-biting, tale-bearing, scandal-mongering next Sunday, and put some to the blush, as I trust.  St. Paul will furnish me with more than one text eminently apposite.—­Let me think—­let me see—­hum—­ah! yes.”

And he fell to quoting from the Pauline epistles in Greek—­to the lively annoyance of his auditor, whose education, though solid did not include a knowledge of those languages vulgarly known as “dead.”  She naturally sought means to round on him.

“Might you not compromise yourself rather by such a sermon, James?” she presently said.

“Compromise myself?  Certainly not.—­Pray, Jane, how?”

“By laying yourself open to the suspicion of a larger acquaintance with the origin of those rumours than you are willing to admit.”

The shaft went home.

“This is a mere attempt to draw me.  You are disingenuous.”

“Nothing of the sort,” the lady declared.  “My one object is to protect you from criticism.  And preaching upon gossip must invite rather than allay interest, thus giving this particular gossip a new lease of life.  The application would be too obvious.  Clearly, James, it would be wiser to wait.”

“The serpent, again the serpent—­and one I’ve warmed in my bosom, too”—­Then aloud—­“I will think it over, my love.  Possibly your view may be the right one.  It is worth consideration.—­That must be sufficient.  And now, Jane, I do implore you give over discussion and let us say good night.”

It may be registered as among the consequences of these nocturnal exercises, that Dr. Horniblow abstained from tickling the ears of his congregation, on the following Sunday, with a homily founded upon the sin tale-bearing; and that he duly called, next day, at The Hard accompanied by his wife.