Henry touched his cap again, and the master strode on to the residence of the Reverend Mr. Prattleton, and entered it without ceremony. Mr. Prattleton was seated with his two sons, and with George. "Send the boys away for a minute, will you?" cried the master to his brother clergyman. The boys went away, exceedingly glad to be sent. "You can go on with your Greek in the other room," said their father. But to that suggestion they were conveniently deaf, preferring to take an evening gallop through some of the more obscure streets, where they knocked furiously at all the doors, and pulled out a few of the bell-wires. "An unpleasant affair has happened, Prattleton," began the master. "The register at St. James's has been robbed." "The register robbed!" echoed Mr. Prattleton. "Not the book taken?" "Not the book itself. A leaf has been taken out of it." "How?" "We must endeavour to find out how. Hunt protests that nobody has had access to it but ourselves, save in his presence." "I do not suppose they have," returned Mr. Prattleton. "How could they? When was it taken?" "Sometime since the beginning of November. And there'll be a tremendous stir over it, as sure as that we are sitting here: it was wanted for--for--some trial at the next assizes," concluded the master, recollecting that Mr. Fauntleroy had cautioned him still not to speak of it. "Fauntleroy's people went to-day to take a copy of it, and found it gone; so Fauntleroy came on to me." "You are sure it is gone?" continued Mr. Prattleton. "An entry is so easily overlooked." "I am sure it is not in the book now: and I read it there last November." "Well, this is an awkward thing. Have you no suspicion?--no clue?" "Not any. Hunt was telling a tale----By the way," added Mr. Wilberforce, turning to George Prattleton, who had moved himself to a polite distance, as if not caring to hear, "you were mixed up in that. He says, that last November you and Lewis had some secret between you, about the church. Lewis went down to his house one morning by moonlight, got the key by stratagem, and brought it back, saying it was the wrong one: and you then went to the church with him, and both of you were agitated. What was it all about? What did he want in the church?" "Oh--something had been left there, I think he said, when one of the college boys had gone in to practise. That was nothing, Mr. Wilberforce. We did not go into the church, after all." George Prattleton spoke with eagerness, and then hastened from the room, but not before Mr. Wilberforce had caught a glimpse of his countenance. "What is the matter with George?" whispered he. Mr. Prattleton turned, and looked at the door by which he had gone out. "With George?" he repeated: "nothing that I know of. Why?" "He turned as pale as my cravat: just as Hunt describes him to have been when he went into the church with Lewis. I shall begin to think there is a mystery in this."