iled, and his eyes for a moment lost their look of pain.

"Quite so," he said gently, "but at the same time I might--probably
should--have died. I took the best advice, nearly ruined myself with
visiting specialists"--he smiled very faintly--"and none could give me
any assurance that I should live through it. And I could not
afford--then--to die."

"Not afford?" Anstice stared at him in amazement.

"No. You see"--his voice was a mere thread--"you see I had a wife,
Anstice--oh, no one knows, and my secret is safe with you--and although
I could not live with her ... she was not what the world calls a good
woman, and her ideal of life was not one which I, as a clergyman, could
assist her to realize--well, I could not let her sink altogether for
want of money to keep some sort of home together."

"You sent her money?"

"Yes. I sent what I could from my stipend--it wasn't much--God's
ministers are supposed to be content with the promises of treasure in
heaven," said Carey, with a hint of humour in his weak tone. "I made a
little, too, by writing for the reviews. But it was precarious, Anstice,
precarious; and I dared not risk dying, and leaving her in want."

"And now?" Anstice had noted the tense in which he spoke of his wife,
and he guessed the answer before the other spoke.

"She is dead--she died three weeks ago," said Carey quietly. "And now I
can give up the struggle myself----"

"I wish to God you had told me earlier," said Anstice vehemently. "At
least I might have done something for you----"

"Oh, I had alleviations," said Carey slowly. "When the pain grew
unendurable I had remedies which gave me some relief. But I knew that if
I told you you would seek to persuade me to a course I really could not
have adopted. You mustn't mind me saying it, Anstice. Perhaps I have
been wrong all through." His voice was wistful. "But I did what I
thought was right--and luckily for us poor men God judges us by our
intentions, so to speak, and not by the results."

The words returned to Anstice's mind three days later as he stood by the
graveside of his friend, and in his heart he wondered whether it were
indeed true that what men called failure might, in the eyes of God,
spell a great and glorious success.

* * * * *

The next person to leave Littlefield was Sir Richard Wayne. For since
his daughter's wedding he had been finding life without her almost
unbearable, and at length he avowed