When that gentleman declared that he had received it from Mr.Soames, Mr.Soames had been forced to contradict and to resent such an assertion.

When Mr.Crawley had afterwards said that the money had come to him from the dean, and when the dean had shown that this also was untrue, Mr.Soames, confident as he was that he had dropped the pocket-book at Mr.Crawley's house, could not but continue the investigation.

He had done so with as much silence as the nature of the work admitted.

But by the day of the magistrates' meeting at Silverbridge the subject had become common through the county, and men's minds were very much divided.
All Hogglestock believed their parson to be innocent; but then all Hogglestock believed him to be mad.

At Silverbridge the tradesmen with whom he had dealt, and to whom he had owed, and still owed, money, all declared him to be innocent.