as the pastor of his parish? It was Sowerby who had led him into this misery, who had brought on him this ruin. But then had not Sowerby paid him? Had not that stall which he now held in Barchester been Sowerby's gift? He was a poor man now—a distressed, poverty-stricken man; but, nevertheless, he wished with all his heart that he had never become a sharer in the good things of the Barchester chapter.
"I shall resign the stall," he said to his wife that night. "I think I may say that I have made up my mind as to that."
"But, Mark, will not people say that it is odd?"
"I can not help it—they must say it. Fanny, I fear that we shall have to bear the saying of harder words than that."
"Nobody can ever say that you have done any thing that is unjust or dishonorable. If there are such men as Mr. Sowerby—"
"The blackness of his fault will not excuse mine." And then again he sat silent, hiding his eyes, while his wife, sitting by him, held his hand.
"Don't make yourself wretched, Mark. Matters will all come right yet. It can not be that the loss of a few hundred pounds should ruin you."
"It is not the money—it is not the money!"
"But you have done nothing wrong, Mark."
"How am I to go into the church, and take my place before them all, when every one will know that bailiffs are in the house?" And then, dropping his head on to the table, he sobbed aloud.
Mark Robarts' mistake had been mainly this—he had thought to touch pitch and not to be defiled. He, looking out from his pleasant parsonage into the pleasant upper ranks of the world around him, had seen that men and things in those quarters were very engaging. His own parsonage, with his sweet wife, were exceedingly dear to him, and Lady Lufton's affectionate friendship had its value; but were not these things rather dull for one who had lived in the best sets at Harrow and Oxford, unless, indeed, he could supplement them with some occasional bursts of more lively life? Cakes and ale were as pleasant to his palate as to the palates of those with whom he had formerly lived at college. He had the same eye to look at a
