On this particular afternoon he was about to close the window and try to work at his sermon when some one knocked at his door. "Come in," he said impatiently. The maid appeared. "Please, sir, there's some one would like to speak to you." "Who is it?" "She gave her name as Miss Milton, sir." He paused, looking down at his papers. "She said she wouldn't keep you more than a moment, sir." "Very well. I'll see her." Fate pushing him again. Why should this woman come to him? How could any one say that any of the steps that he had taken in this affair had been his fault? Why, he had had nothing whatever to do with them! The sight of Miss Milton in his doorway filled him with the same vague disgust that he had known on the earlier occasions at the Library. To-day she was wearing a white cotton dress, rather faded and crumpled, and grey silk gloves; in one of the fingers there was a hole. She carried a pink parasol, and wore a large straw hat overtrimmed with roses. Her face with its little red-rimmed eyes, freckled and flushed complexion, her clumsy thick-set figure, fitted ill with her youthful dress. It was obvious enough that fate had not treated her well since her departure from the Library; she was running to seed very swiftly, and was herself bitterly conscious of the fact. Ronder, looking at her, was aware that it was her own fault that it was so. She was incompetent, utterly incompetent. He had, as he had promised, given her some work to do during these last weeks, some copying, some arranging of letters, and she had mismanaged it all. She was a muddle- headed, ill-educated, careless, conceited and self-opinionated woman, and it did not make it any the pleasanter for Ronder to be aware, as he now was, that Brandon had been quite right to dismiss her from her Library post which she had retained far too long. She looked across the room at him with an expression of mingled obstinacy and false humility. Her eyes were nearly closed. "Good-afternoon, Canon Ronder," she said. "It is very good of you to see me. I shall not detain you very long." "Well, what is it, Miss Milton?" he said, looking over his shoulder at her. "I am very busy, as a matter of fact. All these Jubilee affairs-- however, if I can help you." "You can help me, sir. It is a most serious matter, and I need your advice." "Well, sit down there and tell me about it." The sun was beating into the room. He went across and pulled down the blind, partly because it was hot and partly because Miss Milton was less unpleasant in shadow. Miss Milton seemed to find it hard to begin. She gulped in her throat and rubbed her silk gloves nervously against one another. "I daresay I've done wrong in this matter," she began--"many would think so. But I haven't come here to excuse myself. If I've done wrong, there are others who have done more wrong--yes, indeed." "Please come to the point," said Ronder impatiently.