aths. Malling could not understand
Chichester. But it became evident to him that for some reason or other
the curate was painfully critical of his rector, as sometimes highly
sensitive people are critical of members of their own family. And Mr.
Harding was certainly aware of this critical attitude, and at moments
seemed to be defiant of it, at other moments to be almost terrorized
by it.

All that passed, be it noted, passed as between gentlemen, rather
glided in the form of nuance than trampled heavily in more blatant
guise. But Evelyn Malling was a highly trained observer and a man in
whom investigation had become a habit. Now that he was no longer ill at
ease he became deeply interested in the relations between the two men
with whom he was walking. He was unable to understand them, and this
fact of course increased his interest. Moreover he was surprised by the
change he observed in Chichester.

Although he had never been intimate with Henry Chichester, he had known
him fairly well, and had summed him up as a very good man and a decidedly
attractive man, but marred, as Malling thought, by a definite weakness of
character. He had been too amiable, too ready to take others on their own
valuation of themselves, too kind-hearted, and too easily deceived. The
gentleness of a saint had been his, but scarcely the firmness of a saint.
Industrious, dutiful, and conscientious, he had not struck Malling as a
man of strong intellect, though he was a cultivated and well-educated
man. Though not governed by his own passions,--when one looked at him one
had been inclined to doubt whether he had any,--he had seemed prone to be
governed by those about him, at any rate in little matters of every day.
His charm had consisted in his transparent goodness, and in an almost gay
kindliness which had seemed to float round him like an atmosphere. To
look into his face had been to look at the happiness which comes only to
those who do right things, and are at peace with their own souls.

What could have happened to change this charming, if too pliant,
personality into the critical, watchful, almost--so at moments it seemed
to Malling--aggressive curate who was now, always in a gentlemanly way,
making things rather difficult for his rector?

And the matter became the more mysterious when Malling considered Mr.
Harding. For here was a man obviously of dominant personality. Despite
his fleeting subservience to Chichester, inexplicable to Malli