'Shelter with me, sir!' exclaimed the indignant rector, moving, as he
spoke, towards the bell. 'Out of my house you shall go this instant.'

The fellow placed his hand upon the reverend gentleman's arm, and
looked with his bloodshot eyes keenly in his face.

'Don't!' said Danby; 'don't, for the sake of yourself and yours!
Don't! I warn you: or, if you like the phrase better, don't, for the
sake of me and _mine_.'

'Yours, fellow! Your wife, whom you have so long held in cruel bondage
through her fears for her son, has at last shaken off that chain.
James Harper sailed two days ago from Portsmouth for Bombay. I sent
her the news two hours since.'

'Ha! Is that indeed so?' cried Danby, with an irrepressible start of
alarm. 'Why, then----But no matter: here, luckily, comes Mrs Arbuthnot
_and her son_. All's right! She will, I know, stand bail for me, and,
if need be, acknowledge the genuineness of her husband's cheque.'

The fellow's insolence was becoming unbearable, and I was about to
seize and thrust him forcibly from the apartment, when the sound of
wheels was heard outside. 'Hold! one moment,' he cried with fierce
vehemence. 'That is probably the officers: I must be brief, then, and
to the purpose. Pray, madam, do not leave the room for your own sake:
as for you, young sir, I _command_ you to remain!'

'What! what does he mean?' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot bewilderedly, and
at the same time clasping her son--who gazed on Danby with kindled
eyes, and angry boyish defiance--tightly to her side. Did the man's
strange words give form and significance to some dark, shadowy,
indistinct doubt that had previously haunted her at times? I judged
so. The rector appeared similarly confused and shaken, and had sunk
nerveless and terrified upon a sofa.

'You guess dimly, I see, at what I have to say,' resumed Danby with a
malignant sneer. 'Well, hear it, then, once for all, and then, if you
will, give me up to the officers. Some years ago,' he continued,
coldly and steadily--'some years ago, a woman, a nurse, was placed in
charge of two infant children, both boys: one of these was her own;
the other was the son of rich, proud parents. The woman's husband was
a gay, jolly fellow, who much preferred spending money to earning it,
and just then it happened that he was more than usually hard up. One
afternoon, on visiting his wife, who had removed to a distance, he
found that the rich man's child had sickened of the small-pox, and