ion, the
scene being laid here at Witching Hill House. The principal character is
the very black sheep of my family who once lived there."

"I'm aware of the relationship," said the Vicar, dryly unimpressed.

"It's not one that we boast about; hence Miss Brabazon's kindness in
trying to ascertain whether my people or I were likely to object to its
publication."

"Well," said the Vicar, "I'm quite sure that neither you nor your people
would have any objection to Miss Brabazon's getting to bed by
midnight."

He returned to the door, which he held wide open with urbane frigidity.
"Now, Julia, if you'll set us an example."

And at the door he remained when the bewildered lady, delivered from an
embarrassment that she could not appreciate, and committed to a
subterfuge in which she could see no point, had flown none the less
readily, with a hectic simper and a whistle of silk.

"Now, gentlemen," continued the Vicar, "it's nearly midnight, as I've
said more than once."

"I was to take the story with me, to finish it by myself," explained
Uvo, with the smile of a budding ambassador.

"Oh, very well," rejoined the Vicar, shutting the door. "Then we must
keep each other a minute longer. I happen myself to constitute the final
court of appeal in all matters connected with the _Parish Magazine_.
Moreover, Mr. Delavoye, I'm a little curious to see the kind of
composition that merits a midnight discussion between my sister and two
young men whose acquaintance I myself have had so little opportunity of
cultivating."

He dropped into a chair, merely waving to us to do the same; and
Delavoye did; but I remained standing, with my eyes on the reader's
face, and I saw him begin where Miss Julia had left off and the MS. had
fallen open. I could not be mistaken about that; there was the mark of
his own boot upon the page; but the Vicar read it without wincing at the
passage which his sister had declared her intention of crossing out. His
brows took a supercilious lift; his cold eyes may have grown a little
harder as they read; and yet once or twice they lightened with a human
relish--an icy twinkle--a gleam at least of something I had not thought
to see in Mr. Brabazon. Perhaps I did not really see it now. If you look
long enough at the Sphinx itself, in the end it will yield some
semblance of an answering look. And I never took my eyes from the
Vicar's granite features, as typewritten sheet after sheet was turned so
softly by h