for, leaning forward too far in his anxiety to do so, he upset his hat with some noise on to the floor.

The man started on the instant as if he had been subjected to a galvanic shock, and, turning, stood gazing in the direction of the noise. Jack heard him draw in his breath with the sharp sound of sudden fear, and even by that light could see that his face was drawn and white. The barrister rose quietly in the gloom, the stranger at sight of him leaning back against the bookcase as if his legs refused to support him. Yet he was the first to speak. there?' he said, almost in a whisper.

Who is

'A visitor,' Jack answered simply. I have been waiting to see Mr. Lindo.'

The curate for he it was-drew a long breath, apparently of relief; in reality of such heartfelt thankfulness as he had never known before. What a start you gave me!' he murmured, his voice as yet scarcely under his control. I am Mr. Clode, Mr. Lindo's curate. I was putting up some parish papers, and thought the room was empty.'

'So I saw,' Jack answered dryly. I am afraid your nerves are a little out of order.'

The curate muttered something which was inaudible, and, raising his hand to the bookcase, locked the cupboard door and put the key in his pocket. Then he went to the lamp and turned it up. At the same moment Jack, recovering his hat, advanced into the circle of light, and the two men looked at one another. 'I am afraid if you wish to see the rector you will be disappointed,' the curate said, with something of hauteur in his voice, assumed to hide his suspicions. He was to spend the evening at Mrs. Hammond's. I doubt if he will be back before midnight.'

'Then I must call another time,' Jack said practically.

'If I see him first, can I tell him anything for you?' the curate persisted. Who was this man? Could he be a detective? The idea was preposterous, yet it occurred to him.

But Jack was so far from being a detective that he had dismissed the suspicions he had at first entertained. I think not, thank you,' he answered. 'I will call again.'

'if

'Can I give him any name?' Clode asked in the last resort. 'Well, you might say Jack Smith called,' the barrister answered, you will be so kind.'

They parted at the door, and Clode went back into the house, where he speedily learned all that Mrs. Baxter knew of Mr. Smith.

It dispelled his first fear. The man was not a detective; still it sent him home gloomy and ill at ease. What if so intimate a friend of the rector, as this Smith seemed to be, should tell him of his curate's visit to the cupboard, and the excuse which on the spur of the moment he had invented? It might go ill with him then. What explanation could he give? He tried to consider such a mishap impossible, or at all events unlikely; but not with complete success. More than ever he wished that he had not

meddled with the letters.

To return to Jack, whose presence was shedding gladness on the Bonamy household. Such mild festivities as the bazaar were not uncommon in Claversham, but the Bonamys had not been wont to look forward to them with anything approaching exhilaration. It is wonderful how children growing up in social shadow learn the fact. Daintry Bonamy, scarcely less than her sister, had come to regard the annual flower-show, the school sports, and the regatta with distaste and repugnance, as occasions of little pleasure and much humiliation. It was Mr. Bonamy's will, however, that they should attend, though he never went himself; and times innumerable they had done so, outwardly in pretty dresses and becoming hats, inwardly in sackcloth and ashes.

Jack's presence changed all this, and for once the girls went up quite gaily to dress. If Kate reflected that Jack's intimacy with the rector would be likely to bring them also into contact with him, she said nothing; and from Jack-for the present at least-it was mercifully hidden that, with all his kindness, his unfailing good-humour, his wit, his devotion to her, his chief attraction in the girl's eyes lay in the fact that he was another man's friend.

When they entered the Assembly Room it was already well filled, the main concourse being about the two stalls at the end of the room over which the archdeacon's wife and Mrs. Hammond respectively ruled. Here the great people were mainly to be seen; and an acute observer would soon have discovered that between those who habitually hung about this end and those who surrounded the four lower stalls there was a great gulf fixed. Those on the one side of this examined the dresses of those on the other with indulgent interest, and, for the most part, through double eyeglasses; while those on the other hand either returned the compliment and made careful notes, or looked about deferentially for a glance of recognition. The man who should have

bridged that gulf, who should have been equally at home with Mrs. Archdeacon and the hotel-keeper's wife, was the rector. But the rector had heard on his entrance the unlucky word 'writ,' and he was in his most unpleasant humour. He felt that the whole room were talking of him—the majority with a narrow dislike, a few with sympathy. Was it unnatural that, forgetting his situation, he should throw in his lot with his friends, who were ever so much the pleasanter, the wittier, the more amusing, and present a smiling front of defiance to his opponents or those whom he thought to be such? At any rate, that was what he was doing; and no one could remark the carriage of his head or the direction of his eyes without feeling that there was something in the townsfolk's complaint that the new clergyman was above his work.

Jack and his party did not at once come across him. They found enough to amuse them at the lower end of the room-the more as to the barrister the great and the little with whom he rubbed shoulders were all one. Strange to say, he did not discern any great difference even in their dress! With Daintry hanging on his arm and Kate at his side, he was content, until, turning suddenly in the thick of the crowd to speak to the elder girl, he saw her face become crimson. At the same moment she bowed slightly to some one behind him. He looked round quickly, with a sharp jealous pang at his heart, to learn who had called forth this show of emotion. He found himself face to face with the rector.

Lindo had looked forward to this meeting. He had prepared himself for it. And yet, occurring in this way, it shook him out of his self-possession. He coloured almost as deeply as the girl had coloured, and, though he held out his hand without any perceptible pause, the action was nervous and jerky. By Jove! is it you, Jack?' he said, his tone a mixture of old cordiality and rising antagonism. How do you do, Miss Bonamy?' and he held out his hand to the girl also, who just touched it with her fingers and drew back. It is pleasant to see your cousin's face again,' he went on more glibly, yet clearly not at his ease. 'I was sorry that I was not at home last night when he called.'

Yes, I was sorry to miss you,' Jack answered slowly, his eyes on his friend's face. He could not quite understand matters. His cousin's embarrassment had been almost a revelation to him, and yet it flashed across his mind now that the cause of it might be only the quarrel between her father and the rector. The

same thing would account for Lindo's shy, ungenial manner. And yet and yet he could not quite understand it, and, whether he would or no, his face grew hard. You heard I had looked in?' he continued.

'Yes; Mrs. Baxter told me,' Lindo answered, moving slightly to let some one pass him; then glancing aside to smile a recognition. 'She looks the better for the change, I think.'

'Yes; she gets more fresh air now.'

It does not seem to have done you much good.' 'No?'

Altogether it was rather pitiful. They were old, tried college friends, or had been so a few weeks back, and they had nothing more to say to one another than this! The rector's self-consciousness began to infect the other, sowing in his mind he knew not what suspicions. So that, if ever Daintry's interposition was welcome, it was welcome now. 'Jack is going to stay a week,' she said inconsequently, standing on one leg the while, with her arm through Jack's and her big eyes on the rector's face.

'I am very glad to hear it,' Lindo answered. He will find me at home more than once in the week, I hope.'

'I shall come and try,' said Jack stoutly.

'Of course you will!' the rector replied, with a flash of his old manner. 'I shall be glad if you will remind him of his promise, Miss Bonamy.'

Kate murmured that she would."

"You like your house?' Jack said.

'Oh, very much—very much indeed.'

'It is an improvement on No. 383?' continued the barrister, rather dryly.

'It is very much so!'

The words were natural. They were the words Jack expected. But, unfortunately, Gregg at that moment passed the rector's elbow, and the latter's manner was cold and shy-almost as if he resented the reference to his old life. Jack thought he did, and his lip curled. Fortunately, Daintry again intervened. 'Here is Miss Hammond,' she said. 'She is looking for you, Mr. Lindo.'

The rector turned as Laura, threading her way through the press, came smiling towards him. She glanced with some curiosity at Jack, and then nodded graciously to Kate, whom she knew at the Sunday school, and through meeting her on such occasions as this. 'How do you do, Miss Bonamy?' she said pleasantly.

'Will you pardon me if I carry off the rector? We want him to come to tea.'

Kate bowed, and the rector took off his hat to the girls. Then he waved an awkward farewell to Jack, muttered 'See you soon!' and went off with his captor.

And that was all! Jack turned away with his cousins to the nearest stall, and bought and chatted. But he did both at random. His thoughts were elsewhere. He was a keen observer, and he had seen too much for comfort, yet not enough for comprehension. Nor did the occasional glance which he shot at Kate's preoccupied face, as she bent over the woolwork and guaranteed hand-paintings,' tend to clear up his doubts or render his mood more cheerful.

Meanwhile the rector's frame of mind, as he rejoined his party, was not a whit more enviable. He was angry with himself, angry with his friend. The sight of Jack standing by Kate's side had made his own conduct to the girl at their last interview appear in a worse light than before—more churlish, more ungrateful. He wished now-but morosely, not with any tenderness of regret—that he had sought some opportunity of saying a word of apology to her. And then Jack? He fancied he saw condemnation written on Jack's face, and that he too, to whom, in the old days, he had confided all his aspirations and resolves, was on the enemy's side—was blaming him for being on bad terms with his churchwardens, and for having already come to blows with half his parish.

It was not pleasant. But the more unpleasant things he had to face, the higher he would hold his head. He disengaged himself presently—the Hammonds had already preceded him— from the throng and bustle of the heated room, and went down the stairs alone. Outside it was already dark, and small rain was falling in the dull streets. The outlook was wretched, and yet in his present mood he found a trifling satisfaction in the respect with which the crowd of ragamuffins about the door fell back to give him passage. With it all, he was some one. He was rector of the town.

At the Hammonds' door he found a carriage waiting in the rain. It was not one he knew, and as he placed his umbrella in the stand he asked the servant whose it was.

'It is Lord Dynmore's, sir,' the man answered, in his low trained voice. His lordship is in the drawing-room, sir.'