suspending liberty of speech, or sitting helpless while half a dozen
impudent idiots stop the progress of legislation from motives of the
meanest kind. And they are not even sensitive enough to the national
honor to pass a social law among themselves which makes it as
disgraceful in a gentleman to buy a seat by bribery as to cheat at
cards. I declare I think the card-sharper the least degraded person of
the two. _He_ doesn't encourage his inferiors to be false to a public
trust. In short, my dear sir, everything wears out in this world--and
why should the House of Commons be an exception to the rule?"

He picked up the next letter from the heap. As he looked at the address,
his face changed. The smile left his lips, the gayety died out of his
eyes. Traveler, entreating for more notice with impatient forepaws
applied to his master's knees, saw the alteration, and dropped into a
respectfully recumbent position. Father Benwell glanced sidelong off the
columns of the newspaper, and waited for events with all the discretion,
and none of the good faith, of the dog.

"Forwarded from Beaupark," Winterfield said to himself. He opened the
letter--read it carefully to the end--thought over it--and read it
again.

"Father Benwell!" he said suddenly.

The priest put down the newspaper. For a few moments more nothing was
audible but the steady tick-tick of the clock.

"We have not been very long acquainted," Winterfield resumed. "But our
association has been a pleasant one, and I think I owe to you the duty
of a friend. I don't belong to your Church; but I hope you will believe
me when I say that ignorant prejudice against the Catholic priesthood is
not one of _my_ prejudices."

Father Benwell bowed, in silence.

"You are mentioned," Winterfield proceeded, "in the letter which I have
just read."

"Are you at liberty to tell me the name of your correspondent?" Father
Benwell asked.

"I am not at liberty to do that. But I think it due to you, and to
myself, to tell you what the substance of the letter is. The writer
warns me to be careful in my intercourse with you. Your object (I am
told) is to make yourself acquainted with events in my past life, and
you have some motive which my correspondent has thus far failed to
discover. I speak plainly, but I beg you to understand that I also speak
impartially. I condemn no man unheard--least of all, a man whom I have
had the honor of receiving under my own roof."

He spoke with