He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside made itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman. "Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are very welcome." Flaxman grasped--and pressed--the proffered hand, looking at Meynell the while with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's face that the errand on which he came had been anticipated. Meynell led him into the study and shut the door. "I have just had Barron here," he said, turning abruptly, after he had pushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of these precious documents to you." He held up the anonymous letter. Flaxman took it, glanced it over in silence and returned it. "I can only forgive him for doing it when I reflect that I may thereby--perhaps--be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barron knows what I think of him, and of the business." "Oh! for him it is a weapon--like any other. Though to do him justice he might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in the case--the writer of these letters. You know--" he straightened himself vehemently--"that I can say nothing--except that the story is untrue?" "And of course I shall ask you nothing. I have spent twenty-four hours in arguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally I decided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of the letter to my sister-in-law?" Meynell's start was evident. "To Mrs. Elsmere?" "She brought it to us on Friday, before the party. It was, I think, identical with this letter"--he pointed to the Dawes envelope--"except for a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping the families of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident." "And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite of himself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor. "Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it," said Flaxman hastily. "Now will you give us your orders? A strong denial of the truth of the story, and a refusal to discuss it at all--with any one--that I think is what you wish?" Meynell assented. "In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursday night." Then he rose. "Are you going to Forked Pond?" "I was on my way there." "I will go with you. If Mrs. Elsmere is free, I should like to have some conversation with her."