he should
coolly propose to set off without bidding her good-bye."

"Couldn't we tell her in confidence about Peter?" said the canon,
struck with a brilliant idea.

"Certainly not; she would fly to him at once, and leave Sir Timothy
alone in his extremity."

"Couldn't we tell her in confidence about Sir Timothy?"

"I have allowed Sir Timothy to understand that neither you nor I will
betray his secret."

"I'm no hand at keeping a secret," said the canon, unhappily.

"Nonsense, canon, nonsense," said Dr. Blundell, laying a friendly hand
on his shoulder. "No man in your profession, or in mine, ought to be
able to say that. Pull yourself together, hope for the best, and play
your part."

CHAPTER III

John Crewys looked round the hall at Barracombe House with curious,
interested eyes.

It was divided from the outer vestibule on the western side of the
building by a massive partition of dark oak, and it retained the solid
beams and panelled walls of Elizabethan days; but the oak had been
barbarously painted, grained and varnished. Only the staircase was so
heavily and richly carved, that it had defied the ingenuity of the
comb engraver. It occupied the further end of the hall, opposite
the entrance door, and was lighted dimly by a small heavily leaded,
stained-glass window. The floor was likewise black, polished with age
and the labour of generations. A deeply sunken nail-studded door led
into a low-ceiled library, containing a finely carved frieze and
cornice, and an oak mantelpiece, which John Crewys earnestly desired
to examine more closely; the shield-of-arms above it bore the figures
of 1603, but the hall itself was of an earlier date.

Parallel to it was the suite of lofty, modern, green-shuttered
reception-rooms, which occupied the south front of the house, and
into which an opening had been cut through the massive wall next the
chimney.

The character of the hall was, however, completely destroyed by the
decoration which had been bestowed upon it, and by the furniture and
pictures which filled it.

John Crewys looked round with more indignation than admiration at the
home of his ancestors.

In the great oriel window stood a round mahogany table, bearing a
bouquet of wax flowers under a glass shade. Cases of stuffed birds
ornamented every available recess; mahogany and horsehair chairs
were set stiffly round the walls at even distances. A heap of folded
moth-eaten rugs and wraps disfigured a