‘There is nothing to be forgiven,’ said Mr Crawley; ‘nothing.’

’She feels that what she did was awkward and foolish.  She ought never to have paid the cheque away in such a manner.  She knows that now.’

‘It was given—­not paid,’ said Crawley; and as he spoke something of the black cloud came back on his face.  ’And I am well aware hard Mrs Arabin strove to take away from the alms she bestowed the bitterness of the sting of eleemosynary aid.  If you please, Arabin, we will not talk any more of that.  I can never forget that I have been a beggar, but I need not make my beggary the matter of conversation.  I hope the Holy Land has fulfilled your expectation?’

‘It has more than done so,’ said the dean, bewildered by the sudden change.

’For myself, it is, of course, impossible that I should ever visit any scenes except those to which my immediate work may call me—­never in this world.  The new Jerusalem is still within my reach—­if it be not forfeited by pride and obstinacy; but the old Jerusalem I can never behold.  Methinks, because it is so, I would sooner stand with my foot on Mount Olivet, or drink a cup of water in the village of Bethany, than visit any other spot within the traveller’s compass.  The sources of the Nile, of which men talk so much—­I see it in the papers and reviews which the ladies at Framley are so good as to send to my wife—­do not interest me much.  I have no ambition to climb Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn; Rome makes my mouth water but little, nor even Athens much.  I can realise without seeing all that Athens could show me, and can fancy that the existing truth would destroy more than it would build up.  But to have stood on Calvary!’

‘We don’t know where Calvary was,’ said the dean.

‘I fancy that I should know—­should know enough,’ said the illogical and unreasonable Mr Crawley.  ’Is it true that you can look over from the spot on which He stood as He came across the brow of the hill, and see the huge stones of the temple placed there by Solomon’s men—­as He saw them—­right across the brook Cedron, is it not?’

‘It’s all there, Crawley—­just as your knowledge of it tells you.’

’In the privilege of seeing those places I can almost envy a man his—­money.’  The last words he uttered after a pause.  He had been about to say that underneath temptation he could almost envy a man his promotion; but he bethought himself that on such an occasion as this it would be better that he should spare the dean.  ’And now, if you wish it, we will go in.  I fancy that I see my wife at the window, as though she were waiting for us.’  So saying, he strode on along the little path, and the dean was fain to follow him, even though he had said so little of all that he had intended to say.

As soon as he was in with Mrs Crawley he repeated his apology about the cheque, and found himself better able to explain himself than he could do when he was alone with the husband.  ’Of course, it has been our fault,’ he said.