postmaster is also in a position to be the gossip-master,
and Mr. Bankley, of Bishop's Crossing, had many of the secrets of his
neighbours in his possession. Of this particular letter he remarked
only that it was in a curious envelope, that it was in a man's
handwriting, that the postscript was Buenos Ayres, and the stamp of the
Argentine Republic. It was the first letter which he had ever known
Dr. Lana to have from abroad and this was the reason why his attention
was particularly called to it before he handed it to the local postman.
It was delivered by the evening delivery of that date.

Next morning--that is, upon the 4th of June--Dr. Lana called upon Miss
Morton, and a long interview followed, from which he was observed to
return in a state of great agitation. Miss Morton remained in her room
all that day, and her maid found her several times in tears. In the
course of a week it was an open secret to the whole village that the
engagement was at an end, that Dr. Lana had behaved shamefully to the
young lady, and that Arthur Morton, her brother, was talking of
horse-whipping him. In what particular respect the doctor had behaved
badly was unknown--some surmised one thing and some another; but it was
observed, and taken as the obvious sign of a guilty conscience, that he
would go for miles round rather than pass the windows of Leigh Hall,
and that he gave up attending morning service upon Sundays where he
might have met the young lady. There was an advertisement also in the
Lancet as to the sale of a practice which mentioned no names, but which
was thought by some to refer to Bishop's Crossing, and to mean that Dr.
Lana was thinking of abandoning the scene of his success. Such was the
position of affairs when, upon the evening of Monday, June 21st, there
came a fresh development which changed what had been a mere village
scandal into a tragedy which arrested the attention of the whole
nation. Some detail is necessary to cause the facts of that evening to
present their full significance.

The sole occupants of the doctor's house were his housekeeper, an
elderly and most respectable woman, named Martha Woods, and a young
servant--Mary Pilling. The coachman and the surgery-boy slept out. It
was the custom of the doctor to sit at night in his study, which was
next the surgery in the wing of the house which was farthest from the
servants' quarters. This side of the house had a door of its own for
the convenien