"There's the Reverend Armitage waiting to see you in the hall, sir. But he was looking so queer that I was in two minds if I ought to admit him or not. It was Elsa who happened to open the door. Well, I mean to say, Maud's upstairs doing her rooms, and Elsa was a bit frightened when she saw him, through her being engaged to a policeman and so her mind running on murders and such like. Of course as soon as I saw it was the Reverend Armitage I quieted her down. But he really does look most peculiar, if you'll pardon the obsivation on Mrs. Armitage's husband. I don't think he's actually barmy _yet_; but you know, he gives any one the idea he will be soon, and I thought you ought to be told before he started to rave up and down the house. He's got a funny look in his eye, the same as what a man once had who sat opposite me in a bus and five minutes afterwards jumped off on Hammersmith Bridge and threw himself into the river. Quite a sensation it created, I remember, and we all had to alight, so as the conductor could give what information he had to a policeman who'd only heard the splash." Mrs. Worfolk had been too garrulous; before she had time to ascertain her master's views on the subject of admitting Laurence there was a tap at the door, and Laurence himself stalked into the room. Unquestionably, even to one who had not known him as a clergyman, he did present an odd appearance with his fur-lined cloak of voluminous black, his long hair, his bundle of manuscript and theatrical newspapers, and his tragic eye; the only article of attire that had survived his loss of faith was the clergyman's hat; but even that had lost its former meekness and now gave the effect of a farouche sombrero. "Well met," he intoned, advancing solemnly into the room and gripping his brother-in-law's hand with dramatic effect. "I would converse with you, John." "That's a blank verse line," said John. There really was not much else that he could have said to such an affected greeting. "Probably, probably," Laurence muttered, shaking his head. "It's difficult for me to talk in prose nowadays. But I have news for you, John, good news. _Thomas_ is finished." "You needn't wait, Mrs. Worfolk," said John. His housekeeper was standing by the door with a face wreathed in notes of interrogation and seemed unwilling to retire. "You needn't wait, Mrs. Worfolk," he repeated, irritably. "I thought you might have been wanting somebody fetched, sir." John made an impatient gesture and Mrs. Worfolk vanished. "You know Miss Hamilton, Laurence," said John, severely. "Ah, Miss Hamilton! Forgive my abstraction. How d'ye do? But--ah--I was anxious to have a few words in private." "Miss Hamilton is my confidential secretary." "I bow to your domestic arrangements," said Laurence. "But--ah--my business is of an extremely private nature. It bears in fact directly upon my future."