An impulse took him down from the gallery and up the church; he moved as silently as the men had done. The vestry door was open, and he stood outside on the matting and peeped in, secure of not being seen in the darkness. To his surprise, he recognised faces he knew--gentlemen's faces, not robbers'. One of them was George Prattleton; and the other was the stranger he had seen with him the previous night. What were they doing in the vestry at that hour? "Now make haste about it, Rolls," George Prattleton was saying, as Henry gazed in. "I don't half like the work, and if I had not been more hard up than any poor devil ever was yet, you would never have got me on to it. There's the register." George Prattleton had unlocked a safe and taken a book from it, which he put on the table. "Mind, Rolls, you are not to copy anything; that was the agreement." "I don't want to copy anything: I gave you my word, didn't I?" was the reply of Mr. Rolls, who had seized upon the book. "I only want to see whether a certain entry is here, or whether it is not, and I give you 20_l._ for getting me the sight: and a deuced easy way it is of earning 20_l._, Prattleton." Rolls had drawn a chair to the table, and was poring over the register, as he spoke, turning the leaves one by one. Prattleton stood by, and held the candle, not very steadily. "I can't see, if you whiffle it like that, Prat," cried Mr. Rolls, taking the candlestick from his hand and setting it on the table. "How long shall you be?" "Why, I have hardly begun. Don't be impatient. Sit down on that other chair and take a nap, if you are tired." Prattleton continued to stand at the table, but his impatience was evidently great. His back was to Henry Arkell, but the boy had full view of the countenance and movements of the other: his interest, in what was passing, was not less than his astonishment. "You say you know the date, so where's the use of being so dilatory?" cried Mr. Prattleton. "You turn over the leaves as slow as if you were going to execution. Ah, you have it now, I think." "No, I have not." And Rolls turned another leaf over as he spoke, and went on studying; but he stealthily placed his thumb to mark the page he left. Prattleton yawned, whistled, and yawned again, and finally turned away and began to look in the safe; anything to cover his impatience. Upon which, Henry Arkell distinctly saw Rolls turn back to the page where his thumb was, examine it intently, and then silently blow out the light. "Halloa!" roared Prattleton, finding himself in darkness. "What a beast of a candle!" indignantly uttered Mr. Rolls. "It's gone out!" "What put it out?" "How can I tell? The damp, I suppose: everything smells mouldy. Give us the matches, Prat." "I have not got the matches. You took them."