d be seemly on my part, under the circumstances, to
avail myself of your assistance today in the burial-service for the
late Mr Wodehouse.--Believe me, very sincerely yours,

"W. MORGAN."

When Mr Wentworth looked up from this letter, he caught sight of his
face in the mirror opposite, and gazed into his own eyes like a man
stupefied. He had not been without vexations in eight-and-twenty years
of a not uneventful life, but he had never known anything like the
misery of that moment. It was nearly four hours later when he walked
slowly up Grange Lane to the house, which before night might own so
different a master, but he had found as yet no time to spare for the
Wodehouses--even for Lucy--in the thoughts which were all occupied by
the unlooked-for blow. Nobody could tell, not even himself, the mental
discipline he had gone through before he emerged, rather stern, but
perfectly calm, in the sunshine in front of the closed-up house. If it
was not his to meet the solemn passenger at the gates with words of
hope, at least he could do a man's part to the helpless who had still
to live; but the blow was cruel, and all the force of his nature was
necessary to sustain it. All Carlingford knew, by the evidence of its
senses, that Mr Wentworth had been a daily visitor of the dead, and
one of his most intimate friends, and nobody had doubted for a moment
that to him would be assigned as great a portion of the service as his
feelings permitted him to undertake. When the bystanders saw him join
the procession, a thrill of surprise ran through the crowd; but
nobody--not even the man who walked beside him--ventured to trifle
with the Curate's face so far as to ask why. The Grand Inquisitor
himself, if such a mythical personage exists any longer, could not
have invented a more delicate torture than that which the respectable
and kind-hearted Rector of Carlingford inflicted calmly, without
knowing it, upon the Curate of St Roque's. How was Mr Morgan to know
that the sting would go to his heart? A Perpetual Curate without a
district has nothing to do with a heart so sensitive. The Rector put
on his own robes with a peaceful mind, feeling that he had done his
duty, and, with Mr Leeson behind him, came to the church door with
great solemnity to meet the procession. He read the words which are
so sweet and so terrible with his usual reading-desk voice as he read
the invitations every Sunday. He was a good man, but he was middle-aged,