retorted the other. "No, I shall deny nothing!" he reiterated as if to himself. "But think for a minute, Mr. Musk—I entreat you to think calmly for one minute! Suppose I could tell you what you ask, could it serve any good end for you to know?"

"Good end!" cried Musk. "Why, you know it could. I could kill the man who's killed my daughter—and kill him I will—and swing for him if they like. That'll be a wonderful good end all round!"

"Then is it for me to throw temptation in your way? Is it for me to spoil a life, if not to end it? For all you know, Mr. Musk, it may be a life otherwise honest, useful, and of good report. Nay!" exclaimed Mr. Carlton, as if suddenly impatient of his own reticence, "I'll go so far as to say that it once was all three. And the man would do such duty—make such amends——"

A groan admitted that there were none to make, and finished a sentence to which Musk had not listened; the one before was sufficient for him; and his broad face shone with the satisfaction of a point gained.

"Come," said he, "that's fairer! So you do know him, and you say so like a man. I always took you for a man, sir, though there's been no love lost between us; and I'll say I'm sorry I spoke so harsh just now, Mr. Carlton; for I had a hold of the wrong end o' the stick—I see that now. It was the man that confessed—it was the man. Sir, if you're the Christian gentleman that I take you for, and this here Christianity o' yours ain't all cant an' humbug, you'll tell me that man's name; for I can't call to mind a single one she so much as looked at—unless it was that young Mellis."

"No, no; poor George is innocent enough, God knows!"

"He's like to be, for all I hear. They say he carries a cross for you o' Sundays—but I won't say no more about that. If he's your right hand in the parish, as they tell me he is, at least I should hope he'd be straight."

A puff of wind came through the open window. It lifted the newspaper from the open book, but the rector's hand fell quickly upon both. And there it rested. And his wretched eyes rested upon his hand.

"So I've never thought twice about George Mellis. I'd as soon think o' you, sir. Then who can it be?"

Mr. Carlton bounded to his feet, white as his collar, and quivering to his nostrils.

"You want to know?"

"I mean to know, sir."

"And to kill him—eh?"

"I reckon I'll go pretty near it."

"Ah, don't do it by halves!" cried Carlton in a strange high voice. "Kill him now!" His hands fell open at his side; his head fell forward on his breast; and he who had sinned grossly against God and man, yet was not born to be a hypocrite, stood defenceless, abject, self-destroyed.

Moments passed; became minutes; and all the sound in the rectory study came from the rattling of its inner door, or through the outer one from the garden. Then by degrees a hard breathing broke on Robert Carlton's ears; but he himself was the next to speak, flinging back his head in sudden misery.

"Why don't you strike?" he cried out. "You've got your stick; strike, man, strike!"

It seemed an hour before the answer came, in a voice scarcely recognizable as that of Jasper Musk, it was so low and calm; yet there was an intensity in the deep, slow tones that matched the fearful intensity of the fixed light eyes; and the massive face was still and livid from the short steel beard to the virile silver hair.

"Oh, yes, I'll strike!" hissed Musk. "I'll strike! I'll strike!" And he struck with his eyes until the other's fell once more; until the guilty man collapsed headlong in his chair, his arms upon the table, and his face upon his arms. "But I'll strike in my own way, thank you," Musk went on, "and in my own good time. You shall smart a bit first—learn what it's like to suffer—taste hell upon earth in case there's no hell for bloody murderers beyond! How I wish you could see yourself! How I wish your precious flock could see you—and they shall. Whited sepulchre . . . filthy hypocrite . . . living lie!"

Deliberately chosen, with long pauses between, with many a rejection of the word that came uppermost—the worse word that was too strong to sting—these measured epithets carved round the heart that unbridled abuse would have stabbed and stunned. Carlton could hide his face, but he quivered where he sprawled, and the other nodded in savage self-esteem.

"Not that I had ought to be surprised," continued Musk; "it's what might have been expected of a Jesuit in disguise; the only wonder is I didn't suspect you from the first. I never set up for being a charitable man; but that seems I was a damned sight too charitable towards you. I thought no wrong, whatever else I may have thought of you and your ways. No; I may have jeered, I may have been vexed, but my mind wasn't nasty enough for that. God! that I can keep my stick off you, when I remember the choir practices, and the organ practices, and the Bible classes, and the Young Women's Christian Association. Sounds well, don't it? Young Women's Christian Association! Now we know what it meant; now we know what it all means, church and parsons, religion and all; a sink of iniquity and a set of snivelling, whining, licentious——"

"Stop!" cried Carlton, manned at last, and on his feet to enforce the word. "Say what you please of me, do what you will to me. Nothing is too bad for me—I deserve the very worst. But abuse my Church you shall not, in my hearing."

"His Church!" sneered Musk. "A lot you've done to make me respect it, haven't you? My God, can you stand there looking at me as if I were in the wrong instead o' you? Do you know what you've done, and confessed to doing? You've murdered my girl, just as much as though you'd taken and cut her throat, you have: more, you've murdered her body and soul, you that snivel about the soul! And you can stand there and whine about your Church! Is that all you've got to say for yourself—to the father of the woman you've ruined to her grave?"

"That is all I have to say to you, Mr. Musk. I will not insult you by asking your forgiveness, much less by attempting to make the shadow of an excuse; there could be none; nor can there be any forgiveness for me from you or your wife; nor do I look for any mercy in this parish, or this world. Go, spread the news, and ruin me in my turn; it's what I deserve, and mean to bear."

"Not so fast," said Musk—"not so fast, if you please. So I'm to spread the news, am I? And do you think I'm so proud that's the reverend? By your leave, Mr. Carlton, I'll keep that same news to myself till I've had all I want from it."

"Any refinement you like," said Carlton. "It will not be too bad for me—or too much—please God!"

Jasper Musk put on his hat, but came close up to the clergyman before taking his leave.

"I wish I knew you better!" he ground out through his teeth. "I wish I'd made up to you like the women, instead of giving you the wide berth I have. Do you know why? Because I'd have known how to hit you hardest," said Musk, hissing like a snake; "because I'd have known where to hurt you most!"

Carlton stood a trifle more upright: his enemy's malice ministered subtly to his remnant of self-respect.

"I wish I'd been a church-goer," continued Musk; "but it's never too late to mend! I may be there to-morrow to hear you preach; maybe I'll have a word to say myself; maybe I shall not. You'll know when the time comes, and not before."

Carlton quailed, for the first time at a threat, and his visible terror seemed to intoxicate the other. Seizing him by the shoulder as he had seized his wife, clutching him like a wild beast, and thrusting his great face to within an inch of that of the unhappy