m him. That same evening
he was killed on the underground. I read of it in the paper, went to see
the body, and there was my man."

"Do you claim to have some special faculty?" asked Chichester.

"Oh, dear, no. Besides, you haven't been killed on the underground--yet."

A curious expression that seemed mingled of disappointment and of
contempt passed across Chichester's face. Stepton saw it and told
himself, "No hysteria."

"Possibly the reason may be a more intellectual one," observed the
professor. "I hear you have been preaching some very remarkable sermons.
I haven't heard them. Still, others who have may have 'suggestioned' me.
Three quarters of any man's fame, you know, are due to mere suggestion."

"You're not the man to be the prey of that, I fancy--not the easy prey,
at any rate."

"Then we're left again with no explanation at all, unless, as I believe
I hinted once before, you can give us one."

Chichester looked down; without raising his eyes he presently said in a
constrained voice:

"If I were to give you one you might not accept it."

"Probably not," said Stepton, briskly. "In my life I've been offered a
great many explanations, and I'm bound to say I've accepted remarkably
few."

Chichester looked up quickly, and with the air of a man nettled.

"You'll forgive me, I hope, for saying that you scientific men very often
seem to have a great contempt for those who are more mystically minded,"
he observed.

"I've hit the line!" thought Stepton, with a touch of exultation, as he
dropped out a negligent, "Forgive you--of course."

"I dare say it seems to you extraordinary that any man should be able
to be a clergyman, genuinely believing what he professes and what he
preaches."

"Very few things seem to me extraordinary."

"Perhaps because you are skeptical of so much in which others believe."

"That may be it. Quite likely."

"And yet isn't there a saying of Newton's, 'A little science sends man
far away from God, a great deal of science brings man back to God?'
You'll forgive the apparent rudeness. All I mean is--"

"That the sooner I try to get more science the better for me," snapped
out Stepton, brusquely interrupting his visitor, but without heat.
"Let me tell you that I pass the greater part of my time in that very
effort--to acquire more exact knowledge than I possess. Well--now then!
Now then!"

Turning round still more toward the curate he looked almost as if he were
about to "