no surprise at a
situation which otherwise might have astonished him. It was only when
he learned the dead man's name, and his parentage, that he looked up
quickly from his note book.

"The matter can be arranged without a scandal," he said, after an
instant. "Can you tell me something of the circumstances?"

It was Hodder who answered.

"Preston Parr had been in love with this woman, and separated from her.
She was under Mr. Bentley's care when he found her again, I infer, by
accident. From what the driver says, they were together in a hotel in
Ayers Street, and he died after he had been put in a carriage. In her
terror, she was bringing him to Mr. Bentley."

The doctor nodded.

"Poor woman!" he said unexpectedly. "Will you be good enough to let Mr.
Parr know that I will see him at his house, to-night?" he added, as he
took his departure.

IV

Sally Grower went out with the physician, and it was Mr. Bentley who
answered the question in the rector's mind, which he hesitated to ask.

"Mr. Parr must come here," he said.

As the rector turned, mechanically, to pick up his hat, Mr. Bentley
added,

"You will come back, Hodder?"

"Since you wish it, sir," the rector said.

Once in the street, he faced a predicament, but swiftly decided that the
telephone was impossible under the circumstances, that there could be
no decent procedure without going himself to Park Street. It was only
a little after ten. The electric car which he caught seemed to lag, the
stops were interminable. His thoughts flew hither and thither. Should he
try first to see Alison? He was nearest to her now of all the world, and
he could not suffer the thought of her having the news otherwise. Yes,
he must tell her, since she knew nothing of the existence of Kate Marcy.

Having settled that,--though the thought of the blow she was to receive
lay like a weight on his heart,--Mr. Bentley's reason for summoning
Eldon Parr to Dalton Street came to him. That the feelings of Mr.
Bentley towards the financier were those of Christian forgiveness was
not for a moment to be doubted: but a meeting, particularly under such
circumstances, could not but be painful indeed. It must be, it was,
Hodder saw, for Kate Marcy's sake; yes, and for Eldon Parr's as well,
that he be given this opportunity to deal with the woman whom he had
driven away from his son, and ruined.

The moon, which had shed splendours over the world the night before,
was obscured by