He felt it to be very likely himself; but to go and see her, to hear such a thing from her own lips, was more than his will had strength to accomplish. Myles had at one time heartily despised Sebastian Mallory; and later, with little more reason, had as intensely disliked him. Now that was all changed, and he himself was surprised to find how utterly and entirely his resentment had burnt out, vanished, evaporated. He could see his (as he considered him) successful rival without any other feeling than one of quiet, despairing indifference. His most active wish, when he was conscious of actively wishing anything, was that all this could somehow come to an end, that some change would soon take place. The change was approaching, in a manner so unexpected, so utterly terrible and unthought of, that if his sore and weary heart led him somewhat astray, a just and righteously acting world must not blame him too severely. When the eyes are dim with watching, when every nerve is irritable from long strain and a cruel endless tension, when calamity quickly succeeds calamity, it is not given to all men to act exactly as they ought to do. On the morning of the day on which Mrs. Mallory had been so signally defeated as regarded Miss Blisset, Myles Heywood received a letter. Address and contents were alike in a handwriting unknown to him. The epistle was simply headed ‘Thanshope,’ with the date following. He turned it over, and the subscription puzzled him--‘A Christian Well-wisher,’ it was signed. Marvelling at the whole thing, he began at the beginning, and read it through. ‘Do you know,’ began the ‘Christian Well-wisher,’ ‘what position you are standing in? Do you know to whom you really owe your situation? You owe it to your friend Mr. Sebastian Mallory. Ask him if he did not get Canon Ponsonby’s casting vote, which, with his own, got you in. I thought you were determined to owe nothing to him. Do you know that, with all his fair professions, he is stealing a march upon you in one direction--that if you don’t either make sure of a certain young lady, or give her up altogether, you will soon look a great fool? I say this because it is well known that you and she are, or were, great friends. Ask any one you know, almost any one in the town of Thanshope, what is said about you and her, and see if I have not written the truth. There is one way open to you out of this, and one only--you can leave the place. I take a real interest in you, and advise this, supposing that you do feel some grief at having caused her to be spoken about in such a manner. Of course you are at liberty either to take my advice or leave it. I should think there cannot be much doubt which is the most manly, not to say Christian, course. A CHRISTIAN WELL-WISHER.’