“It is no use ringing,” said Steel, with a shake of his snowy head, “or doing anything else of the sort.  I am the only person on the premises who can let you out; your footman could not get in if he tried; but if you like I shall shout to him to try.  As for insults, you have insulted my wife most cruelly and gratuitously, for I happen to have heard more than you evidently imagine.  In fact, ‘insult’ is hardly the word for what even I have heard you say; let me warn you, madam, that you have sailed pretty close to the wind already in the way of indictable slander.  You seem to forget that my wife was tried and acquitted by twelve of her fellow-countrymen.  You will at least apologize for that forgetfulness before you leave this room.”

“Never!”

Steel looked at his watch and sat down.  “I begin to fear you are no judge of character, Mrs. Venables; otherwise you would have seen ere this which of us will have to give in sooner or later.  I can only tell you which of us never will!”

And Rachel still stood by without a word.

CHAPTER XVII

FRIENDS IN NEED

That afternoon the Vicar of Marley was paying house-to-house visits among his humbler parishioners.  Though his conversation was the weak point to which attention has been drawn, Hugh Woodgate nevertheless possessed the not too common knack of chatting with the poor.  He had the simplicity which made them kin, and his sympathy, unlike that of so many persons who consider themselves sympathetic, was not exclusively reserved for the death-bed and the ruined home.  He wrote letters for the illiterate, found places for the unemployed, knew one baby from another as soon as their own mothers, and with his own hand sent to the local papers full reports of the village matches in which he rarely scored a run.  Until this August afternoon he was not aware that he had made an actual enemy in all the years that he had spent in Delverton, first as an overworked Northborough curate, and latterly as one of the busiest country vicars in the diocese.  But towards five o’clock, as Mr. Woodgate was returning to the Vicarage, a carriage and pair, sweeping past him in a cloud of dust, left the clergyman quite petrified on the roadside, his soft felt hat still in his hand; the carriage contained Mrs. Venables, who had simply stared him in the face when he took it off.

Woodgate was quite excited when he reached the Vicarage.  Morna met him in the garden.

“Mrs. Venables cut me dead!” he cried while they were still yards apart.

“I am not surprised,” replied Morna, who was in a state of suppressed excitement herself.

“But what on earth is the meaning of it?”

“She has just been here.”

“Well?”

“She is not likely to come again.  Oh, Hugh, I don’t know how to tell you!  If you agree with her for a moment, if you see any possible excuse for the woman, it will break my heart!”