But now, the man was not guilty--as he convinced Mr. Ollivera, and the suspicion appeared to have worked him a great deal of ill, and made him hard. On this day, when the clergyman sat by his bed-side, reading and praying, he had turned a deaf ear. "Where's the use?" he roughly cried, "Sir Thomas thinks me guilty always." It struck Mr. Ollivera that the man had greatly respected his master, had valued his good opinion and craved for it still; and the next morning this was confirmed. "You'll go to him when I'm dead, sir, and tell him the truth then, that I was not guilty? I never touched the mug, or knew how or where it went." Returning home with these words ringing in his ears, Mr. Ollivera could not get the man out of his mind. So long as the _sense of being wronged_ lay upon Gisby, so long would he encase himself in his hard indifference, and refuse to hear. "I must get Kene to go to see the man," decided Mr. Ollivera. "He must hear with his own ears and see with his own eyes that he was not guilty, and tell him so; and then Gisby will come round. I wonder if Kene is back from circuit." Excessively tired with his day's work, for his frame was not of the strongest, Mr. Ollivera did not care to go out that evening to Sir Thomas Kene's distant residence on the chance of not finding him. And yet, if the judge was back, there ought to be no time lost in communicating with him, for Gisby was daily getting nearer to death. "Bede Greatorex will be able to tell me," suddenly thought Mr. Ollivera, when his tea had been long over and twilight was setting in. "I'll send and ask him." Moving to his writing-table, he wrote a short note, reading it over before enclosing it in an envelope. "Dear Bede,--Can you tell me whether Sir Thomas Kene is in London? I wish particularly to see him as soon as possible. It is on a little matter connected with my parish work. "Truly yours "WILLIAM OLLIVERA." It was a latent thought that induced Mr. Ollivera to add the concluding sentence and the motive shall be told. He and Bede Greatorex had come to an issue twice upon the subject of his so persistently cherishing the notion that the now long-past death was anything but a suicide; or rather, that he should pursue it. Bede heard so much of it from him that he grew vexed, and at length vowed he would listen to him no more. And Mr. Ollivera thought that if Bede fancied he wanted to see Sir Thomas Kene on that subject, he might refuse to answer him. Ringing the bell, he gave the note to the servant with a request (preferred with deprecation and a plea of his own tired state, for he was one of those who are sensitively chary of giving any extra trouble) that it should be taken to Mr. Bede Greatorex, and an answer waited for.