“You have heard whose son this young Faircloth is, of course?”

Startled by the question, and its peculiar implication, Reginald Sawyer hesitatingly admitted his ignorance.

The Grey House stands flush with the road, and the two gentlemen finished their conversation upon the doorstep.  Above them a welcoming glow shone through the fanlight; otherwise its windows were shuttered and blank.

“This is a matter of common knowledge,” Dr. Cripps said; “but one about which, for reasons of policy, or, more truly, of snobbery, it is the fashion to keep silent.  So, for goodness’ sake, don’t give me as your authority if you should ever have occasion to speak of it”—­

And lowering his voice he mentioned a name.

“As like as two peas,” he added, “when you see them side by side—­which, in point of fact, you never do.  Oh!  I promise you the whole dirty business has been remarkably well engineered—­hush-money, I suppose.  Sometimes I am tempted to think poverty is the only punishable sin in this world.  For those who have a good balance at their bankers there is always a safe way out of even the most disgraceful imbroglios of this sort.  But I must be moving on, Mr. Sawyer.  I sympathize with your annoyance.  You have been very offensively treated.  Good night.”

The young clergyman remained planted on the doorstep, incapable of ringing the bell and presenting himself to his assiduously attentive hostesses, the Miss Minetts, for the moment.

He was, in truth, indescribably shocked.  Deadham presented itself to his mind as a place accursed, a veritable sink of iniquity.  High and low alike, its inhabitants were under condemnation.—­And he had so enjoyed his tea with the ladies at The Hard.  Had been so flattered by their civility, spreading himself in the handsome room, agreeably sensible of its books, pictures, ornaments, and air of cultured leisure.—­While behind all that, as he now learned, was this glaring moral delinquency!  Never had he been more cruelly deceived.  He felt sick with disgust.  What callousness, what hypocrisy!—­He recalled his disquieting sensations in crossing the warren.  Was the very soil of this place tainted, exhaling evil?

He made a return upon himself.  For what, after all, was he here for save to let in light and combat evil, to bring home the sense of sin to the inhabitants of this place, convincing them of the hatefulness of the moral slough in which they so revoltingly wallowed.  He must slay and spare not.  He saw himself as David, squaring up to Goliath, as Christian fighting single-handed against the emissaries of Satan who essayed to defeat his pilgrimage.  Yes, he would smite these lawbreakers hip and thigh, whatever their superficial claims to his respect, whatever their worldly position.  He would read them all a lesson—­that King Log, Canon Horniblow, included.

He at once pitied and admired himself, not being a close critic of his own motives; telling himself he did well to be angry, while ignoring the element of personal pique which gave point and satisfaction to that anger.