one mind. There was a county-club in Barchester, and at this county-club
nine men out of ten were talking about Mr Crawley. It was by no means
necessary that a man should ask questions on the subject. Opinion was
expressed so freely that no such asking was required; and opinion in
Barchester--at any rate in the county-club--seemed now to be all of one
mind. There had been every disposition at first to believe Mr Crawley to
be innocent. He had been believed to be innocent even after he had said
wrongly that the cheque had been paid to him by Mr Soames; but he had
since stated that he had received it from Dean Arabin, and that
statement was also shown to be false. A man who has a cheque changed on
his own behalf is bound at least to show where he got the cheque. Mr
Crawley had not only failed to do this, but had given two false excuses.
Henry Grantly, as he drove home to Silverbridge on the Sunday afternoon,
summed up all the evidence in his own mind, and brought in a verdict of
Guilty against the father of the girl whom he loved.

On the following morning he walked into Silverbridge and called at Miss
Prettyman's house. As he went along his heart was warmer towards Grace
than it had ever been before. He had told himself that he was now bound
to abstain, for his father's sake, from doing that which he had told his
father he certainly would do. But he knew also, that he had said that
which, though it did not bind him to Miss Crawley, gave her a right to
expect that he would so bind himself. And Miss Prettyman could not but
be aware of what his intention had been, and could not but expect that
he should not be explicit. Had he been a wise man altogether, he would
probably have abstained from saying anything at the present moment--a
wise man, that is, in the ways and feelings of the world in such
matters. But, as there are men who will allow themselves all imaginable
latitude in their treatment of women, believing that the world will
condone any amount of fault of that nature, so there are other men, and