At this moment there was a clatter of hoofs upon the road, and a varlet by the door cried out that one of the Englishmen was coming back. The champion looked wildly about for some corner of safety, and was clambering up towards the window, when Ford's voice sounded from without, calling upon Alleyne to hasten, or he might scarce find his way. Bidding adieu to landlord and to champion, therefore, he set off at a gallop, and soon overtook the two archers.

"A pretty thing this, John,' said he. Thou wilt have holy church upon you if you hang her champions upon iron hooks in an inn kitchen.'

'It was done without thinking,' he answered apologetically, while Aylward burst into a shout of laughter.

"By my hilt! mon petit,' said he, 'you would have laughed also could you have seen it. For this man was so swollen with pride that he would neither drink with us, nor sit at the same table with us, nor as much as answer a question, but must needs talk to the varlet all the time that it was well there was peace, and that he had slain more Englishmen than there were tags to his doublet. Our good old John could scarce lay his tongue to French enough to answer him, so he must needs reach out his great hand to him and place him very gently where you saw him. But we must on, for I can scarce hear their hoofs upon the road.' "I think that I can see them yet,' said Ford, peering down the moonlit road.

'Pardieu! yes. Now they ride forth from the shadow. And yonder dark clump is the Castle of Villefranche. En avant, camarades! or Sir Nigel may reach the gates before us. But hark! mes amis, what sound is that?'

As he spoke the hoarse blast of a horn was heard from some woods upon the right. An answering call rung forth upon their left, and hard upon it two others from behind them.

'They are the horns of swineherds,' quoth Aylward. Though why they blow them so late I cannot tell.'

'Let us on, then,' said Ford; and the whole party, setting their spurs to their horses, soon found themselves at the Castle of Villefranche, where the drawbridge had already been lowered and the portcullis raised in response to the summons of Du Guesclin.

(To be continued.)

THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

OCTOBER 1891.

THE NEW RECTOR.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF.'

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LETTERS IN THE CUPBOARD.

WHEN Clode left the Town House after his interview with Laura, he was in a state of exaltation-lifted completely out of his ordinary cool and calculating self by what had happened. It was raining, but he had gone some distance before he remarked it; and even then he did not at once put up his umbrella, but strode along through the darkness, his thoughts in a whirl of triumph and excitement. The crisis had come suddenly, but he had not been found unequal to it. He had gone in through the gates despondent, and come out in joy. He had pitted himself against his rival, and had had the best of it. He had wooed, and, almost in spite of his mistress, had won!

He did not for the first few moments consider the consequences. His altercation with the rector might have, he knew, unpleasant results, but he did not yet trouble himself about them, or about the manner in which he was to do Laura's bidding. Such considerations would come later-with the reaction. For the present they did not occur to him. It was enough that Laura might be his-that she never could be the rector's.

He felt the need, in his present excited mood, of some one to speak to, and instead of turning into his own lodgings he passed on to the reading-room, a large barely furnished room, looking upon the top of the town, and used as a club by the lead

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ing townsfolk and a few of the local magnates who lived near. He entered it, and, to his surprise, found the archdeacon seated under the naked gas-burners, interested in the Times.' The sight filled him with astonishment, for it was seldom the county members used the room after sunset.

'You are the last person I expected to see,' he said—his tongue naturally hung loose at the moment, and a bonhomie, difficult to assume at another time, came easily to him now-what in the world brings you here at this hour?'

6

The archdeacon laid down his paper. Upon my word I think I was half asleep,' he said. 'I am here for the "Free Foresters' " supper. I thought the hour was half-past six, and came into town accordingly, whereas I find it is half-past seven. I have been here the best part of three-quarters of an hour killing time.'

'But I thought that the rector always said grace for the “Free Foresters," the curate answered in some surprise.

'It has been the custom for them to ask him,' the archdeacon replied cautiously. By the way, you did it last year, did you not?'

'Yes, for Mr. Williams. He was confined to his room.'

'I thought so. Well, this year these foolish people seem to have taken a fancy not to have the rector, and they came to me. I tried to persuade them to have him, but it was no good. And so,' the archdeacon added, lowering his tone, 'I thought it would look less like a slight if I came than if any other clergyman-you, for instance-were the clerical guest.'

'To be sure,' the curate said warmly. 'It was most thoughtful of you.'

The archdeacon hitched his chair slightly nearer the fire. He felt the influence of the curate's sympathy. The latter had said little, but his manner warmed the old gentleman's heart, and his tongue also grew more loose. 'I wonder whether you know,' he said genially, rubbing his hands up and down his knees, which he was gently toasting, and looking benevolently at his companion, 'how near you were to having the living, Clode?'

'Do you mean Claversham?' the curate replied, experiencing a kind of shock at this reference to the subject so near his heart.

'Yes, of course.'

'I never thought I had a chance of it!'

"You had so good a chance,' the archdeacon answered, nod

ding his head wisely, 'that only one thing stood between you and it.'

'May I ask what that was?' the curate rejoined, his heart beating faster.

'A promise. The earl promised his old friend that he should have this living. Lord Dynmore told me so himself, the last time I saw him. That would be nearly a year ago, when poor Williams was already ailing.'

'Well, I supposed that to be the case,' Clode answered, his tone one of disappointment. He had expected to hear more than this.

'But I do not quite see how I was affected by it-more, I mean, than others, archdeacon,' he continued.

That is what I was going to tell you, only it must not go farther,' the archdeacon answered genially. Lord Dynmore told me of this promise in connection with a resolution he had just come to—namely, that he would in future give his livings (he has seven in all, you know) to the curate, wherever the latter had been two years at least in the parish, and stood well with it. I am not sure that I agree with him; but he is a conscientious man, though an odd one, and he had formed the opinion that that was the right course. So, now, if anything should happen to Lindo, you would drop into it. And I am not sure,' the archdeacon added confidentially, though no one likes Lindo more than I do, that yours would not have been the better appointment.'

The curate disclaimed this so warmly and loyally, that the archdeacon was more than ever pleased with him; and, half-past seven striking, they parted at the door of the reading-room on the best of terms with one another. The archdeacon crossed to his supper and speech, and the curate turned into his rooms, and, throwing himself into the big leather chair before the fire, fixed his eyes on the glowing coals, and began to think-to apply what he had just heard to what he had known before.

A living? He was bound to get a living. And without capital to invest in one, or the favour of a patron, how was it to be done? The bishop? He had no claim there. He had not been long enough in the diocese, nor did he know anything of the bishop's wife. There was only one living he could get, only one living upon which he had a claim, and that was Claversham. It all came back to that-with this added, that he had now a stronger motive than ever for ejecting Lindo from it, and the absolute knowledge to boot that, Lindo ejected, he would be his successor.

Stephen Clode's face grew dark and gloomy as he reached this stage in his reflections. He believed, or thought he believed, that the rector was enjoying what he had no right to enjoy, but still he would fain have had no distinct part in depriving him of it. He would have much preferred to stand by and, save by a word here and there-by little acts scarcely palpable, and quite incapable of proof-do nothing himself to injure him. He knew what loyalty was, and would fain have been loyal in big things at least. But he did not see how it could be done. He fancied that the stir against the rector was dying out. Bonamy had not moved, Gregg was a coward, and of this matter of the Free Foresters' he thought nothing. Probably they would return to their allegiance another year, and among the poor the rector's liberality would soon make friends for him. Altogether, the curate, as he rose and walked the room restlessly and with a knitted brow, was forced to the conviction that, if he would be helped, he must help himself, and that now was the time. The iron must be struck before it cooled. Something must be done.

But what? Clode's mind reverted first to the discharged servant, and he considered more than one way in which he might be used. There was an amount of danger, however, in tampering with him which the thinker's astuteness did not fail to note, and which led him presently to determine to leave Felton alone. Perhaps he had made as much capital out of him as could be made with safety.

From him the curate's thoughts passed naturally to the packet of letters in the cupboard at the rectory, the letters which he had once held in his hand, and which he persuaded himself would prove the rector's knowledge of the fraud he was committing. Those letters! They haunted the curate. Walking up and down the room, pishing and pshawing from time to time, he could not disentangle his thoughts from them. The narrow chance which had prevented him reading them before somehow made him feel the more certain of their value now-the more anxious to hold them again in his hands.

Were they still in the cupboard, he wondered. He had retained, not with any purpose, but in pure inadvertence, the key which he had mentioned to the rector; and he had it now. He took it from the mantelshelf, toyed with it, dropped it into his pocket. Then he took up his hat, and was going abruptly from the room when the little servant who waited on him met him. She was