bringing up his simple dinner. The curate's first impulse was to order it to be taken down and kept warm for him. His second, to resume his seat and eat it hastily. When he had finished-he could not have said an hour later what he had had-he took his

hat again and went out.

Two minutes saw him arrive at the rectory door, where he was just in time to meet the rector going out. Lindo's face grew red as he saw who his visitor was, and there was more than a suspicion of haughtiness in his tone as he greeted him. 'Good evening,' he said. 'Do you want to see me, Mr. Clode?' 'If you please,' the curate answered simply. May I come in?' For answer, Lindo silently held the door open, and Clode passed through the hall into the library. He was in the habit of entering this room a dozen times a week, but he never did so after leaving his own small lodgings without being struck by its handsome proportions, by the grave harmonious colour of its calf-lined walls, and the air of studious quiet which always reigned within them. Of all the rector's possessions he envied him this room the most. The very sight of the shaded lamp standing on the revolving bookcase at the corner of the hearth, and of the little table beside it, which still bore the rector's coffee-cup and a tiny silver ewer and basin, aroused his spleen afresh. But he gave no outward sign of this. He stood with his hat in one hand, his other leaning on the table, and his head slightly bent. 'Rector,' he said, 'I am afraid I behaved very badly this afternoon.'

'I certainly thought your manner rather odd,' replied the rector shortly; and he stood erect and expectant. But he was half disarmed already.

'I was annoyed, much annoyed, about a private matter,' the curate proceeded in a low, rather despondent tone. It is a matter about which I expect I shall presently have to take your opinion. But for the present I am not at liberty to name it. However, I was in trouble, and I foolishly wreaked my annoyance upon the first person I came across.'

'That was, unfortunately, myself,' Lindo said, smiling. 'It would have been very unfortunate indeed for me, if you were as some rectors I could name,' the curate replied gravely, still with his eyes cast down. As it is—well, I think you will accept my apology.'

There was

Say no more about it,' the rector answered hastily. nothing he hated so much as a scene. 'Have a cup of coffee, my

dear fellow. I will ring for a cup and saucer.' And, before the curate could protest, his host was at the bell and had rung it, his manner the manner of a boy. Sit down, sit down!' he continued. 'Sarah, a cup and saucer, please.'

'But you were going out,' protested the curate, as he complied. 'Only to the post with some letters,' the rector explained. 'I will send Sarah instead.'

Clode sprang up again, a peculiar flush on his cheek, and a flicker as of excitement in his eye. No, no,' he said, 'I am putting you to trouble. If you were going to the post, pray go. You can leave me here and come back to me, if that be all.'

The rector hesitated, his letters in his hand. He might send Sarah. But it wanted a few minutes only of nine o'clock, and he did not approve of the maids going out so late. 'Well, I think I will do as you say,' he answered, feeling that compliance was perhaps the truest politeness; if you are sure that you do not mind.'

'I beg you will,' the curate said warmly.

The cup and saucer being at that moment brought in, the rector nodded assent. Very well; I shall not be two minutes,' he said. "Take care of yourself while I am away.'

The curate, left alone, muttered to himself, No, no, my friend. You will be at least four minutes!' and he waited, with his cup poised, until he heard the outer door closed. Then he set it down. Assuring himself by a steady look that the windows were shuttered, he rose and, quietly crossing the room, as a man might who wished to examine a book, he stood before the little cupboard among the shelves. Perhaps, because he had done the thing before, he did not hesitate. His hand was as steady as it had ever been. If it shook at all, it was with eagerness. His task was so easy and so devoid of danger, under the circumstances, that he even smiled darkly, as he set the key in the lock, at the thought of the more clumsy burglar whom he had detected there. He turned the key and opened the door. Nothing could be more simple. The packet he wanted lay just where he expected to find it. He took it out and dropped it into his breast-pocket, and, long before the time which he had given himself was up, was back in his chair by the fire, with his coffee-cup on his knee.

He might have been expected to feel some surprise at his own coolness. But, as a fact, his thoughts were otherwise employed. He was longing, with intense eagerness, for the moment

when he might take the next step-when he might open the packet and secure the weapon he needed. He fingered the letters as they lay in their hiding-place, and could scarcely refrain from taking them out and examining them there and then. When Lindo returned, and broke into the room with a hearty word about the haste he had made, the curate's answer betrayed no self-consciousness. On the contrary, he rather underplayed his part, his eye and voice displaying for a moment an absence of mind which surprised his host. The next instant he was aware of this, and he conducted himself so warily during the half-hour he remained that he entirely erased from the rector's mind the unlucky impression of the afternoon.

By half-past nine he was back in his own room, at his table, his hat thrown this way, his umbrella that. It took him but a feverish moment to turn up the lamp and settle himself in his chair. Then he took out the packet of letters, and, untying the string which bound them together, he opened the first-there were only six of them in all. This was the one which he had partially read on the former occasion--Messrs. Gearns & Baker's first letter. He read it through now at his leisure, without interruption, once, twice, thrice, and with a long breath laid it down again, and sat gazing, with knitted brows, into the shadow beyond the lamp's influence. There was not a word in it, not an expression, which helped him; nothing to show the recipient of the letter that he was not the Reginald Lindo for whom the living was intended.

The curate sat awhile before he opened the second, and that one he read more quickly. He dealt in the same way with the next, and the next. When, in a short minute or two, he had read them all and they lay in a disordered pile before him—some folded and some unfolded, just as they had dropped from his hands he leaned back in his chair, and, folding his arms, sat frowning darkly into vacancy. There was not a word to help him in any one of them, not a sentence which even tended to convict the rector. He had been at all his pains for nothing. He had

The sound of a raised voice asking for him below roused him with a start-roused him from the dream of disappointment. The hasty tread of a foot mounting the stairs two at a time followed; and so quickly that he had scarce time to move. In a second, nevertheless, he was erect, motionless, listening, his hand upon and half covering the letters. A hasty knock on the outside

of his door, and the touch of fingers on the handle, seemed at the last moment to nerve him to action. Then it was all but too late. As the rector-for the rector it was—came hurriedly into the room, the curate, his face pallid, and the drops of perspiration standing on his brow, swept the letters aside and drew a newspaper partly over them. 'What-what is it?' he muttered, stooping forward, his hands on the table, his eyes set in terror.

Lindo was too full of the news he had brought to observe the other's agitation, the more as the lamp was between them, and his eyes were dazzled by the light. What is the news? Why, what do you think Bonamy has done?' he answered excitedly, as he closed the door behind him. He was breathing quickly with the haste he had made, and, uninvited, he dropped into a chair.

'What?' said the curate hoarsely. He dared not look down at the table lest he should direct the other's eyes to what lay on it, but he was racked as he stood there by the fear lest some damning corner of the paper, some scrap of the writing, should still be visible. He felt, now it was too late, what he had done. The shame of possible discovery poured like a flood over his soul. ( What is it?' he repeated mechanically. He had not yet recovered enough presence of mind to wonder why the rector should have paid this untimely call.

6

'He has served me with a writ!' Lindo replied, his face hot with indignation, his lips curling. At this hour of the night, too! A writ for trespass in driving out the sheep from the churchyard.'

'A writ!' the curate echoed. It is very late for serving writs.' 'Yes. His clerk, who handed it to me-he came five minutes after you left-apologised, and took the blame for that on himself, saying he had forgotten to deliver it on leaving the office.'

'For trespass!' repeated the curate stupidly. What a fool he had been to meddle with those letters under his hand! Why had he not had a little patience? Here, after all, was the catastrophe for which he had been longing.

'Yes, in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, and all the rest of it!' the rector replied; and then he waited to hear what the curate had to say.

But Clode had nothing to say, except 'What shall you do?' And that he said mechanically, and without interest.

'Fight!' replied Lindo briskly, getting up and approaching the table. That of course. It was about that I came to you. I do not think there is any lawyer here I should like to

employ. Did not you tell me the other day you knew the archdeacon's lawyers? Some people in Birmingham, I fancy?'

'Yes, I know them,' the curate answered with an effort. He had overcome his first fear, and, as he spoke, he looked down at the table, on which he was still leaning. His hasty movement had disordered his own papers, but none of the tell-tale letters were visible so far as he could see. What, however, if the rector took up the newspaper? Or casually put it aside? The curate grew hot again and felt his knees shake, despite his great self-control. He felt himself on the edge of a precipice down which he dared not cast his eye.

'Then can you give me their address ?' the rector continued. 'Certainly!' Clode answered. Indeed, he leapt at the suggestion, for it seemed to offer some chance of escape—a way by which he might rid himself speedily of his visitor.

'Just write it down, that is a good fellow, then,' said the rector, unconscious of what was passing in his mind.

The curate said he would, and tore off at random-the rector was pressing his hand on the newspaper, and might at any moment be taken with a fancy to raise it-the back sheet of the first stray note that came to his fingers, and wrote the address upon it. 'There, that is it,' he said; and as he gave it to Lindo-he had written it standing up and stooping-he almost pushed him away from the table. That will serve you, I think. They may be trusted, I am told. The best thing you can do, I am sure,' he continued, advancing so as to get between the other and the table, 'will be to place the matter in their hands at once.'

• I will write before I sleep!' the younger clergyman answered heartily. You cannot think how the narrowness and malice of these people provoke me! But I will not keep you now. I see you are busy. Come round early in the morning, will you, and talk it over?'

'I will come the moment I have had breakfast,' the curate answered, making no attempt to detain his visitor.

And then at last the rector went. Clode stood eyeing the newspaper askance until the other's footsteps died away on the pavement outside. Then he swept it off and stood contemplating the halfdozen letters with abhorrence. He loathed and detested them. They had suddenly become to him the incubus which his victim's body becomes to the murderer. The desire which had tempted him to the crime was gone, and he felt them only as a burden.