ntre light saw the nebuly
coat shining among the darker painted glass with a luminosity which was
even more striking in daylight than in the dusk of the previous evening.

CHAPTER FIVE.

After a week's trial, Westray made up his mind that Miss Joliffe's
lodgings would suit him. It was true that the Hand of God was somewhat
distant from the church, but, then, it stood higher than the rest of the
town, and the architect's fads were not confined to matters of eating
and drinking, but attached exaggerated importance to bracing air and the
avoidance of low-lying situations. He was pleased also by the
scrupulous cleanliness pervading the place, and by Miss Joliffe's
cooking, which a long experience had brought to some perfection, so far
as plain dishes were concerned.

He found that no servant was kept, and that Miss Joliffe never allowed
her niece to wait at table, so long as she herself was in the house.
This occasioned him some little inconvenience, for his naturally
considerate disposition made him careful of overtaxing a landlady no
longer young. He rang his bell with reluctance, and when he did so,
often went out on to the landing and shouted directions down the
well-staircase, in the hopes of sparing any unnecessary climbing of the
great nights of stone steps. This consideration was not lost upon Miss
Joliffe, and Westray was flattered by an evident anxiety which she
displayed to retain him as a lodger.

It was, then, with a proper appreciation of the favour which he was
conferring, that he summoned her one evening near teatime, to
communicate to her his intention of remaining at Bellevue Lodge. As an
outward and visible sign of more permanent tenure, he decided to ask for
the removal of some of those articles which did not meet his taste, and
especially of the great flower-picture that hung over the sideboard.

Miss Joliffe was sitting in what she called her study. It was a little
apartment at the back of the house (once the still-room of the old inn),
to which she retreated when any financial problem had to be grappled.
Such problems had presented themselves with unpleasant frequency for
many years past, and now her brother's long illness and death brought
about something like a crisis in the weary struggle to make two and two
into five. She had spared him no luxury that illness is supposed to
justify, nor was Martin himself a man to be over-scrupulous in such
matters. Bedroom fires, beef-tea, champa