Likely enough none would arrive. A berth which, though only temporary, offered itself so easy and so uncompromising, must attract hundreds of those poor out-at-elbows gentilities who were for ever prowling in search of such occupations as their respectable inexpertness could stomach. It shamed Gilead to think of his seeking to take the bread out of the mouth of any poverty so mean and forlorn; only his sense of desperate necessity urged him into competition with it. It were surely better that one pride should hunger than that a villain should go unmasked, a problematic murderer be allowed to pursue his nefarious course with impunity. Still his application might, probably would, be unsuccessful; and in that case, what then? There would be nothing for it--an undesirable alternative--but to put the police on the track of the advertiser. For that day and the next he lay close, not going near the Agency; and, on the third morning, there was a telegram awaiting him at the post-office. He opened it, somewhat nervously, and read:-- “_Offer accepted provisionally. Be ten to-morrow morning at Church Army Home, Unemployed Yard, Coldbath Lane, Brixton. W.W._” So, after all, he was chosen! Fervently he hoped that he would not be found wanting. And that thought had its necessary corollary in another. What was he going to do when he met Mr Winsom Wyllie face to face? Why, apparently, a thing which he had never done in his life before--chop wood. It seemed quite paralysing, astounding. He had never until this moment thought out his course of action, and here was the problem actually squaring up to him. He had to chop wood--that was the only fact immediately plain to his comprehension. True the man had behaved vilely in intention to an unhappy young woman dependent on him; true that same young woman had, by her own confession, accused him of coercing her father into making a testament in his favour, and of afterwards tempting that parent opportunely to his doom. But that was all conjecture, and however morally irrefutable, not a particle of legal evidence existed to substantiate the charge. Legally, indeed, the heir’s position seemed unassailable. He had been left the property conditionally, and the conditions had resulted in his favour. By the provisions of the will, since the young lady had failed to marry him within the year, he was become the sole and indisputable beneficiary. And what else? Nothing else. Vague surmises, shadowy charges--what was there in them all? Gilead was worldling enough to know that there was never yet a disappointed legatee who did not hint darkly of undue influences or mental irresponsibility. That a testator did not do what was expected of him was no ground for action in the eye of the law.