At that moment Mr. Yorke came in. You have seen him once before, in his place in Helstonleigh Cathedral: a tall, slender man, with pale, well-formed features, and an attractive smile. His dark eyes rested on Constance as he entered, and once more the brilliant colour lighted up her face. When prospects should be a little better--that is, when Mr. Yorke should have a sufficient living bestowed upon him--Constance was to become his wife. His stipend from the minor canonry was at present trifling. “Judith met me in the hall as I was going into the parlour, and told me I had better come here,” he observed. “She said bad news had arrived for Mr. Channing.” “Yes,” answered Hamish. “The lawsuit is lost.” “Lost!” echoed Mr. Yorke. “Irrevocably. We were discussing ways and means amongst ourselves,” said Hamish, “for of course this changes our prospects materially.” “And Constance is going out as a governess, if she can find any one to take her, and Arthur is to plod on with Joe Jenkins, and Tom means to apply for the post of bell-ringer to the cathedral,” interposed the incorrigible Annabel, who had once more darted in, and heard the last words. “Can you recommend Constance to a situation, Mr. Yorke?” He treated the information lightly; laughed at and with Annabel; but Constance noticed that a flush crossed his brow, and that he quitted the subject. “Has the inked surplice been found out, Tom,--I mean the culprit?” “Not yet, Mr. Yorke.” “Charles, you can tell me who it was, I hear?” There was a startled glance for a moment in Charles’s eye, as he looked up at Mr. Yorke, and an unconscious meaning in his tone. “Why, do _you_ know who it was, sir?” “Not I,” said Mr. Yorke. “I know that, whoever it may have been deserves a sound flogging, if he did it willfully.” “Then, sir, why do you suppose I know?” “I met Hurst just now, and he stopped me with the news that he was sure Charley Channing could put his hand upon the offender, if he chose to do it. It was not yourself, was it Charley?” Mr. Yorke laughed as he asked the question. Charley laughed also, but in a constrained manner. Meanwhile the others, to whom the topic had been as Sanscrit, demanded an explanation, which Mr. Yorke gave, so far as he was cognizant of the facts. “What a shame to spoil a surplice! Have you cause to suspect any particular boy, Charley?” demanded Hamish. “Don’t ask him in my presence,” interrupted Tom in the same hurried manner that he had used in the cloisters. “I should be compelled in honour to inform the master, and Charley would have his life thrashed out of him by the school.” “Don’t _you_ ask me, either, Mr. Yorke,” said Charles; and the tone of his voice, still unconsciously to himself, bore a strange serious earnestness. “Why not?” returned Mr. Yorke. “I am not a senior of the college school, and under obedience to its head-master.”