l as I could:
"George Gadley authorizes what he said to the Rev. Julius Charnock
to be used as evidence;" and I suppose he saw us sign it, if he
could see at all, for his sight was nearly gone."

Julius drew a long breath.

"And now, what was it?" said Herbert.

"Well, the trio--Moy, young Proudfoot, and Tom Vivian--detained a
letter of my mother's, with a cheque in it, and threw the blame of
it on Archie Douglas. They thought no one was in the office but
themselves; but Gadley was a clerk there, and was in the outer room,
where he heard all. He came to Moy afterwards, and has been preying
on him for hush-money ever since."

"And this will set things straight?"

"Yes. How to set about the public justification I do not yet see;
but with your father, and all the rest, Archie's innocence will be
as plain as it always has been to us."

"Where is he?"

"On an ostrich farm at Natal."

"Whew!--we must have him home. Jenny can't be spared. Poor Jenny,
when she hears that, it will make all other things light to her."

"What is their address?"

"No, don't write. Mamma has had a fresh cold, and neither my father
nor Jenny could leave her. Let them have a little peace till it
gets worse. There will be plenty of time, if it is to be a twenty-
eight days business like the others. Poor mamma!" and he rolled his
head away; then, after some minutes of tossing and shivering, he
asked for a prayer out of the little book in his pocket. "I should
know it, but my memory is muddled, I think."

The book--a manual for sick-rooms--was one which Julius had given
him new five weeks back. It showed wear already, having been used
as often in that time as in six ordinary years of parish work. By
the time the hard-pressed doctor came, it was plain that the fever
was setting in severely, aggravated no doubt by the dreadful night
at the 'Three Pigeons,' and the unrelaxed exertions ever since; for
he was made to allow that he had come home in the chill morning air,
cold, sickened, and exhausted; had not chosen to disturb anybody,
and had found no refreshment but a raw apple--the last drop of wine
having been bestowed on the sick; had lain down for a short sleep
worse than waking, and had neither eaten nor slept since, but worked
on by sheer strength of will and muscle. When Julius thought of the
cherishing care that he had received himself, he shuddered, with a
sort of self-reproach for his neglect; and the doctor, though good