“At last,” Clode muttered, his eyes burning, “I have it now.” The string which bound the packet was knotted tightly, and his fingers seemed all thumbs as he labored to unfasten it. But he succeeded at last, and opening the uppermost letter (they were all folded across), saw that it was written from Lincoln’s Inn Fields. “My dear sir,” he read; and then—with a mighty crash sounding awfully in his ears—the door behind him was flung open just as he had flung it open himself an hour before, and, dropping the letter, he sprang round, to find the rector confronting him with a face of stupid astonishment. CHAPTER IX. TOWN TALK. He was a man, as the reader will perhaps have gathered, of many shifts, and cool-headed; but for a moment he felt something of the anguish of discovery which had so tortured the surprised servant. The table shook beneath his hand, and it was with difficulty he repressed a wild impulse to overturn the candle, and escape in the darkness. He did repress it, however; nay, he forced his eyes to meet the rector’s, and twisted his lips into the likeness of a smile. But when he thought of the scene afterward he found his chief comfort in the reflection that the light had been too faint to betray his full embarrassment. Naturally the rector was the first to speak. “Clode!” he ejaculated softly, his surprise above words. “Is it you? Why, man,” he continued, still standing with his hand on the door and his eyes devouring the scene, “what is up?” The money-box stood open at the curate’s side, and the letters lay about his feet where they had fallen. The little cupboard yawned among the books. No wonder Lindo’s amazement, as he gradually took it all in, rather increased than diminished, or that the curate’s tongue was dry and his throat husky when he at last found his voice. “It is all right. I will explain it,” he stammered, almost upsetting the table in his agitation. “I expected you before,” he added fussily, moving the light. “The dickens you did!” slipped from the rector. It was difficult for him not to believe that his arrival had been the last thing expected. “Yes,” returned the curate, with a little snap of defiance. He was recovering himself, and could look the other in the face now. “But I am glad you did not come before, all the same.” “Why?” “I will explain.” The light which the one candle gave was not so meagre that Clode’s embarrassment had altogether escaped Lindo; and had the latter been a suspicious man he might have had queer thoughts, and possibly expressed them. As it was, he was only puzzled, and when the curate said he would explain, answered simply, “Do.”