ut the questions, one by one,
from his crafty little list, pursing his lips between each; and one
by one, Lawford, seated at the dressing-table, fluently scribbled
his answers. Then question and answer were rigorously compared by Mr
Bethany, with small white head bent close and spectacles poised upon the
powerful nose, and signed and dated, and passed to Mrs Lawford without a
word.

Mrs Lawford read question and answer where she stood, in complete
silence. She looked up. 'Many of these questions I don't know the
answers to myself,' she said.

'It is immaterial,' said Mr Bethany.

'One answer is--is inaccurate. 'Yes, yes, quite so: due to a mistake in
a letter from myself.'

Mrs Lawford read quietly on, folded the papers, and held them out
between finger and thumb. 'The--handwriting...' she remarked very
softly.

'Wonderful, isn't it?' said Mr Bethany warmly; 'all the general look and
run of the thing different, but every real essential feature unchanged.
Now into the envelope. And now a little wax?'

Mrs Lawford stood waiting. 'There's a green piece of sealing-wax,'
almost drawled the quiet voice, 'in the top right drawer of the nest
in the study, which old James gave me the Christmas before last.' He
glanced with lowered eyelids at his wife's flushed cheek. Their eyes
met.

'Thank you,' she said.

When she returned the vicar was sitting in a chair, leaning his chin on
the knobbed handle of his umbrella. He rose and lit a taper for her
with a match from a little green pot on the table. And Mrs Lawford, with
trembling fingers, sealed the letter, as he directed, with his own seal.

'There!' he said triumphantly, 'how many more such brilliant lawyers, I
wonder, lie dormant in the Church? And who shall keep this?... Why, all
three, of course.' He went on without pausing. 'Some little drawer now,
secret and undetectable, with a lock.' Just such a little drawer that
locked itself with a spring lay by chance in the looking-glass. There
the letter was hidden. And Mr Bethany looked at his watch. 'Nineteen
minutes,' he said. 'The next thing, my dear child--we're getting on
swimmingly--and it's astonishing how things are simplified by mere
use--the next thing is to send for Simon.'

Sheila took a deep breath, but did not look up. 'I am entirely in your
hands,' she replied.

'So be it,' said he crisply. 'Get to bed, Lawford; it's better so. And
I'll look in on my way back from Witchett. I came, my dear fellow, in
gl