aughed Poland to himself. "What would the parson think
if he knew who I am, and the charge against me? What will he say
afterwards, I wonder?"

Then, a few moments later, a thin, grey-faced, rather ascetic-looking
clergyman, the Reverend Edmund Shuttleworth, rector of Middleton, came
across the grass and grasped his host's hand in warmest greeting.

When he had seated himself in the low chair which Poland pulled
forward, and Felix had handed the cigars, the two men commenced to
gossip, as was their habit.

Phil Poland liked the rector, because he had discovered that,
notwithstanding his rather prim exterior and most approved clerical
drawl, he was nevertheless a man of the world. In the pulpit he
preached forgiveness, and, unlike many country rectors and their
wives, was broad-minded enough to admit the impossibility of a sinless
life. Both he and Mrs. Shuttleworth treated both chapel and
church-going folk with equal kindliness, and the deserving poor never
went empty away.

Both in the pulpit and out of it the rector of Middleton called a
spade a spade with purely British bluntness, and though his parish was
only a small one he was the most popular man in it--a fact which
surely spoke volumes for a parson.

"I was much afraid I shouldn't be able to come to-night," he said
presently. "Old Mrs. Dixon, over at Forest Farm, is very ill, and I've
been with her all the afternoon."

"Then you didn't go to Lady Medland's garden-party?"

"No. I wanted to go very much, but was unable. I fear poor old Mrs.
Dixon may not last the night. She asked after Miss Sonia, and
expressed a great wish to see her. You have no idea how popular your
daughter is among the poor of Middleton, Mr. Poland."

"Sonia returns from London to-morrow afternoon," her father said. "She
shall go over and see Mrs. Dixon."

"If the old lady is still here," said the rector. "I fear her life is
fast ebbing, but it is reassuring to know she has made peace with her
Maker, and will pass happily away into the unknown beyond."

His host was silent. The bent old woman, the wife of a farm-labourer,
had made repentance. If there was repentance for her, was there not
repentance for him? He held his breath at the thought.

Little did Shuttleworth dream that the merry, easy-going man who sat
before him was doomed--a man whose tortured soul was crying aloud for
help and guidance; a man with a dread and terrible secret upon his
conscience; a man threatened by a