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I know what is being said,' she murmured, looking up at him, a gleam of humour in her brown eyes-' that you stayed at the Homfrays' all night, playing cards. My maid told me as we came in after church.'

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• Ha! I knew that they were saying something of the kind,' he replied savagely. He took the matter so much to heart that she felt her little attempt at badinage reproved. The true reason was of a very different description,' he continued. 'What spiteful busybodies they are! I started to return last evening about halfpast nine, but as I passed Baer Hill Colliery I learned that there had been an accident. A man going down the shaft with the night shift had been crushed-hurt beyond help,' the rector continued in a lower voice. He wanted to see a clergyman; and the other pitmen, some of whom had seen me pass earlier in the day, stopped me and took me to him.'

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"How sad! How very sad!' she ejaculated. felt ill at ease with him in this mood. of veil had fallen between them.

Somehow she

With his last words a kind

'I stayed with him the night,' the rector continued. He died at half-past nine this morning. I came straight from that to this. And they say these things of me!'

His voice, though low, was hard, and yet there was a suspicious break in it as he uttered his last words. Injustice touches a man, young and not yet hardened, very sorely; and he was overwrought. Laura, fingering her little bunch of violets, heard the catch in his voice, and knew that he was not very far from tears.

She was almost terrified. She longed to respond, to say the proper thing, but here her powers deserted her. She was not capable of much emotion, unless the call especially concerned herself; and she could not rise to this occasion. She could only murmur again that it was abominable and too bad; or, taking her cue from the young man's face, say that it was very sad. She said enough, it is true, to satisfy him, though not herself; for he only wanted a listener. And for the rest, when he went in to lunch, Mrs. Hammond more than bore him out in all his denunciations; so that when he left to go to the schools he had fully made up his mind to carry things through.

The quarrel indeed did him more injury by throwing him into the arms of the party which his own pleasure and taste led him to prefer than in any other way. He did not demur when Mrs. Hammond-meaning little evil, but expressing prejudices which

at one time she had sedulously cultivated (for when one lives near the town one must take especial care not to be confounded with it)-talked of a set of butchers and bakers, and said, much more strongly than he had, that Mr. Bonamy must be kept in his place. A little quarrel with the lawyer, a little social relaxation in which the young fellow had lost sight of the excellent intentions with which he had set out, then this final quarrel-such had been the course of events; sufficient, taken with his own fastidiousness and inexperience, to bring him to this.

Mrs. Hammond, standing at the drawing-room window, watched him as he walked down the short drive. I like that young man,' she said decisively. He is thrown away upon these

people.'

Her daughter, who had not gone to the schools, yawned. 'He has not one-half the brains of someone else we know, mother," she answered.

"Who is that?'

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But Laura did not reply; and probably her mother understood, for she did not press the question. Well,' Mrs. Hammond said, after a moment's silence, perhaps he has not. I do not know. But at any rate he is a gentleman from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes.'

'I dare say he is,' Laura admitted languidly.

Mrs. Hammond, depositing her portly form in a suitable chair, watched her daughter curiously. She would have given a good deal to be able to read the girl's mind and learn her intentions; but she was too wise to ask questions, and had always given her the fullest liberty. She had watched the growth of the intimacy between Laura and Mr. Clode without demur, feeling a considerable liking for the man herself, though she scarcely thought him a suitable match for her daughter. On the old rector's death there had seemed for a few days a chance of Mr. Clode being appointed his successor; and at that time Mrs. Hammond had fancied she detected a shade of anxiety and excitement in Laura's manner. But Mr. Clode had not been appointed, and the new rector had come; and Laura had apparently transferred her favour from the curate to him.

At this Mrs. Hammond had felt somewhat troubled-at first; but in a short time she had naturally reconciled herself to the change, the rector's superiority as a parti being indisputable. Yet still Mrs. Hammond felt no certainty as to Laura's real feel

ever.

ings, and, gazing at her this afternoon, was as much in the dark as That the girl was fond of her she knew; indeed, it was quite a pretty sight to see the daughter purring about the mother. But Mrs. Hammond was more than half inclined to doubt now whether Laura was fond, or capable of being fond, of any other human being except herself.

She sighed gently as she thought of this, and rang the bell for tea. I think we will have it early this afternoon,' she said. 'I feel I want a cup.'

CHAPTER XI.

THE DOCTOR SPEAKS.

THE feelings with which the curate hastened, on the conclusion of his own service, to learn what had happened at the great church may be imagined. His excitement and curiosity were not the less because he had to hide them. If there really had been no service-if the rector had not appeared-what a scandal, what a subject for talk was here! Even if the rector had appeared a little late there would still be whispering; for new brooms are expected to sweep clean. The curate composed his dark face, and purposely made one or two sick-calls at houses which lay in his road, lest he might seem to ask the question he had to put too pointedly. By the time he reached the rectory he had made up his mind, judging from the absence of stir in the streets, that nothing very unusual had happened.

'Is the rector in ?' he asked the servant.

'No, sir; he has gone to the Town House to dinner,' the girl answered.

Involuntarily Mr. Clode frowned. He was in time for service, I suppose?' he asked, more abruptly than he had intended. 'Oh, yes, sir,' the maid answered readily. She had not been to church.

So

answered, turning away.
His heart was sick with disap-

'Thank you; that is all,' he nothing had come of it after all! pointed hope as he turned into his own dull lodgings; and he felt that the rector in being in time had wronged him afresh, and by dining at the Town House had added insult to injury.

But in the course of the day he learned how late the rector had been; and early next morning some rumour of the triangular

altercation in the church porch also reached him—of course in an exaggerated form. As a fact, all Claversham was by this time talking of it, Mr. Bonamy's companions, with one exception, taking good care to make the most of his success, and to paint the rebuff he had administered to the clergyman in the deepest colours. The curate heard the news with a face of grave concern, but with secret delight, and, turning over in his mind what use he might make of it, came opportunely upon Gregg as the latter was going his rounds. Hallo!' he cried, speaking so loudly that the doctor, who had turned away and would fain have retreated, could not decently escape, 'you are the very man I wanted to see! What is this absurd story about the rector and you? There is not a word of truth in it, I suppose?'

'I am sure I cannot say until you tell me what it is,' replied the doctor snappishly. He was a little afraid of the curate, who had a knack of being unpleasant without giving an opening in

return.

'Why, you seem rather sore about it,' Clode remarked, with apparent surprise.

'I do not know why I should be!' sneered the doctor, his face dark red with anger.

'Certainly not, if there is no truth in the story,' the curate replied, looking down with his eyes half shut at the chafing little man. 'But I suppose it is all an invention, Gregg?'

'It is not an invention that the rector was abominably rude to me,' blurted out the doctor, who scarcely knew with whom to be most angry-his present tormentor or the first cause of his trouble.

'Pooh!' said Clode, 'it is only his way.

Then it is a d, it is a most unpleasant way!' retorted the doctor savagely.

'He means no harm,' said the curate gaily. Why did you not answer him back?’

Dr. Gregg's face turned a shade redder. That was where the shoe pinched. Why had he not answered him back as Bonamy had, and not stood mute, acknowledging himself the smaller man? That was what was troubling him now, and making him fancy himself the laughing-stock of the town. 'I will answer him back in a way he will not like!' he cried viciously, striving to hide his embarrassment under a show of bluster.

'Tut-t-tut!' said the curate provokingly, do not go and

make a fool of yourself by saying things like that, when you know you don't mean them, man. What can you say to the rector?' "I will ask him

But what he would ask the rector was lost to the world, for at that moment Mr. Bonamy, coming down the pavement behind him, touched his sleeve. 'I have just been to your house, doctor,' he said. 'My younger girl is a little out of sorts. Would you mind stepping in and seeing her?'

Gregg swallowed his wrath, and secretly perhaps was thankful for the interruption. He said he would; and the lawyer turned to Mr. Clode. Well,' he said, with a grim geniality, so you have made up your minds to fight?'

'I am not quite sure,' the curate answered with caution-for he knew better than to treat Mr. Bonamy as he treated Gregg—' that I take you.'

'You have not seen your principal this morning?' replied the lawyer, with a smile which for him was almost benevolent. The prospect of a fight was as the Mountains of Beulah to him.

'Do you mean Mr. Lindo?' asked the curate, with some curtness.

The lawyer nodded. 'I see you have not,' he continued. 'So I dare say you do not know that he turned the sheep out of the churchyard after breakfast this morning, and half of them were found nearly a mile away down the Red Lane!'

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"I did not know it,' said the curate gravely. But it was as much as he could do to restrain his exultation. It was by a mighty effort he restrained all signs save of concern.

'Well, it is the fact,' the lawyer replied, rubbing his hands. It is quite true he gave the churchwardens notice to remove them a fortnight ago; but we did not comply, because we say it is our affair, and not his. Now you may tell him from me that the only question in my mind is the form of action.'

'I will tell him,' said the curate with dignity. 'Just so! What do you say, Gregg?'

"

But the doctor, grinning from ear to ear with satisfaction, was gone; and the curate, not a whit less pleased in his heart, hastened to follow his example. Bonamy one, and Gregg two,' he said softly to himself, and last, but not least, one who shall be nameless, three! He has made three enemies already, and if those be not enough, with right on their side, to oust him from his seat when the time comes, why, I know nothing of odds!'

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