was saying to
himself that he had been a fool to live a lonely bachelor life till he
was nearly thirty, and yet congratulating himself that he had done so
since Gertrude was but nineteen. Undoubtedly, he was seeing blissful
visions of the future all the time that he replied to the pretty
speeches, and shook hands with Lena Houghton, and opened the drawing-room
door for her, and took out his watch to assure her that she had plenty of
time and need not hurry to church.

Poor Zaluski! He looked so kindly and pleasant. Though I was only a
slander, and might have been supposed to have no heart at all, I did feel
sorry for him when I thought of the future and of the grief and pain
which would persistently dog his steps.

MY SECOND STAGE

Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie;
Truth is the speech of inward purity.

_The Light of Asia_.

In my first stage the reader will perceive that I was a comparatively
weak and harmless little slander, with merely that taint of original sin
which was to be expected in one of such parentage. But I developed with
great rapidity; and I believe men of science will tell you that this is
always the case with low organisms. That, for instance, while it takes
years to develop the man from the baby, and months to develop the dog
from the puppy, the baby monad will grow to maturity in an hour.

Personally I should have preferred to linger in Mrs. O'Reilly's pleasant
drawing-room, for, as I said before, my victim interested me, and I
wanted to observe him more closely and hear what he talked about. But I
received orders to attend evensong at the parish church, and to haunt the
mind of Lena Houghton.

As we passed down the High Street the bells rang out loud and clear, and
they made me feel the same slight sense of discomfort that I had felt
when I looked at Zaluski; however, I went on, and soon entered the
church. It was a fine old Gothic building, and the afternoon sunshine
seemed to flood the whole place; even the white stones in the aisle were
glorified here and there with gorgeous patches of colour from the stained
glass windows. But the strange stillness and quiet oppressed me, I did
not feel nearly so much at home as in Mrs. O'Reilly's drawing-room--to
use a terrestrial simile, I felt like a fish out of water.

For some time, too, I could find no entrance at all into the mind of Lena
Houghton. Try as I would, I could not distract her attention or gain th