Yes, Jane, I apologize."
"Then I have you authority for contradicting these rumours?"
The Vicar of Deadham groaned in the darkness, and rustled under the
bedclothes. His perplexity was great on being thus confronted by the
time-honoured question as to how far, in the interests of public
morality, it is justifiable for the private individual roundly to lie.
Finally he banked on compromise, that permanently presiding genius of the
Church of England 'as by law established.'
"You have me on the hip, my love," he told his wife quite meekly.
But, as she began rather eagerly to speak, he stopped her.
"Let be, my dear Jane," he bade her, "let be. I neither deny or confirm
the rumours to which I imagine you allude. Silence is most becoming for
us both. Continue to assure any persons, ill-advised and evil-minded
enough to approach you--I trust they may prove but few--that you have
never heard a word of this subject. You will never--I can confidently
promise you--hear one from me.--I shall make it my duty to preach on the
iniquity of back-biting, tale-bearing, scandal-mongering next Sunday,
and put some to the blush, as I trust.
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