But, while Barry left behind him a smiling, self-confident and optimistic host, Miss Chichester left in her wake a woman on whom the shock of disclosure had fallen with grievous and humiliating force. She had feared that something of the kind might happen, but she had never thought that it would come like this. She could not quite believe that the best people in the parish were in direct opposition to her husband; that gentlemen of the vestry who had always treated her with such marked courtesy and consideration could be so openly antagonistic toward him. And if it were all true, in what a cruel position was she herself placed. By birth, breeding and social alignment she belonged to the cultured class. She shirked none of the duties of a rector's wife, so far as her physical and mental ability enabled her to perform those duties. She was devoted to her husband, her children and her Church. It was true that the new, and to her strange and incomprehensible, ideas promulgated by her husband concerning the duty of the Church and its adherents toward the humble and the poor gave her some anxiety when she heard them or thought about them; but she considered herself so ignorant in such matters, and regarded him as being so wise, that she usually preferred to dismiss the subject from her mind rather than to dwell upon it to her own confusion. Up to this time his attitude had not interfered in any way with her Church activities or her social relaxations. It had caused her no great embarrassment, nor had it given her any particular concern. But now a point had been reached beyond which the attempted carrying out of his policy must inevitably reflect upon her. If Miss Chichester's story was true, the situation had grown suddenly acute. The most prominent men of the Church had come out in open rebellion against her husband. Their wives would naturally sympathize with them and side with them. They belonged to the class in which all of her social activities had been performed, and all
