elf up at Chilborough. He
had engaged a young Cambridge man, Gregory Lewes, as his secretary and
librarian, and the two devoted all their time to planning, writing, and
preparing the monograph referred to.

In such circumstances it is hardly remarkable that Challis should have
completely forgotten the existence of the curious child which had
intrigued his interest nearly four years earlier, and it was not until
he had been back at Challis Court for more than eight months, that the
incursion of Percy Crashaw revived his memory of the phenomenon.

The library at Challis Court occupies a suite of three rooms. The first
and largest of the three is part of the original structure of the house.
Its primitive use had been that of a chapel, a one-storey building
jutting out from the west wing. This Challis had converted into a very
practicable library with a continuous gallery running round at a height
of seven feet from the floor, and in it he had succeeded in arranging
some 20,000 volumes. But as his store of books grew--and at one period
it had grown very rapidly--he had been forced to build, and so he had
added first one and then the other of the two additional rooms which
became necessary. Outside, the wing had the appearance of an unduly
elongated chapel, as he had continued the original roof over his
addition, and copied the style of the old chapel architecture. The only
external alteration he had made had been the lowering of the sills of
the windows.

It was in the furthest of these three rooms that Challis and his
secretary worked, and it was from here that they saw the gloomy figure
of the Rev. Percy Crashaw coming up the drive.

This was the third time he had called. His two former visits had been
unrewarded, but that morning a letter had come from him, couched in
careful phrases, the purport of which had been a request for an
interview on a "matter of some moment."

Challis frowned, and rose from among an ordered litter of manuscripts.

"I shall have to see this man," he said to Lewes, and strode hastily out
of the library.

Crashaw was perfunctorily apologetic, and Challis, looking somewhat out
of place, smoking a heavy wooden pipe in the disused, bleak
drawing-room, waited, almost silent, until his visitor should come to
the point.

"... and the--er--matter of some moment, I mentioned," Crashaw mumbled
on, "is, I should say, not altogether irrelevant to the work you are at
present engaged upon."

"Inde