It seemed to be understood that Mr Crawley was to be the general subject of conversation, and no one attempted to talk about anything else.  Indeed, at this time, very little else was talked about in that part of the county;—­not only because of the interest naturally attaching to the question of the suspected guilt of a parish clergyman, but because much had become lately known of Mr Crawley’s character, and because it was known also that an internecine feud had arisen between him and the bishop.  It had undoubtedly become the general opinion that Mr Crawley had picked up and had used a cheque which was not his own;—­that he had, in fact, stolen it; but there was, in spite of that belief, a general wish that he might be acquitted and left in his living.  And when the tidings of Mr Crawley’s victory over the bishop at the palace had become bruited about, popular sympathy went with the victor.  The theft was, as it were, condoned, and people made excuses which were not always rational, but which were founded on the instincts of true humanity.  And now the tidings of another stage in the battle, as fought against Mr Crawley by the bishop, had gone forth through the county, and men had heard that the rural dean was to be instructed to make inquiries which should be preliminary to proceedings against Mr Crawley in an ecclesiastical court.  Dr Tempest, who was now about to meet Mr Toogood at Mr Walker’s, was the rural dean to whom Mr Crawley would have to submit himself in any such inquiry; but Dr Tempest had not as yet received from the bishop any official order on the subject.

’We are so delighted to think that you have taken up your cousin’s case,’ said Mrs Walker to Mr Toogood in almost a whisper.

‘He is not just my cousin, himself,’ said Mr Toogood, ’but of course it’s all the same thing.  And as to taking up his case, you see, my dear madam, he won’t let me take it up.’

‘I thought you had.  I thought you were down here about it.’

’Only on the sly, Mrs Walker.  He has such queer ideas that he will not allow a lawyer to be properly employed; and you can’t conceive how hard that makes it.  Do you know him, Mrs Walker?’

‘We know his daughter Grace.’  And then Mrs Walker whispered something further, which we may presume to have been in intimation that the gentleman opposite—­Major Grantly—­was supposed by some people to be very fond of Miss Grace Crawley.

‘Quite a child, isn’t she?’ said Toogood, whose own daughter, now about to be married, was three or four years older than Grace.

‘She’s beyond being a child, I think.  Of course she is young.’

‘But I suppose this affair will knock all that on the head,’ said the lawyer.

’I do not know how that may be; but they do say he is very much attached to her.  The major is a man of family, and of course it would be very disagreeable if Mr Crawley were found guilty.’

’Very disagreeable indeed; but, upon my word, Mrs Walker, I don’t know what to say about it.’