“He has forgotten that poor Mr. Williams is dead,” Laura murmured to her mother, amid the general pause of astonishment. He overheard her. “Nothing of the kind, young lady!” he answered irritably. “Nothing of the kind. Bless my soul, do you think I do not know whom I present to my own livings? My memory is not so bad as that! I thought this gentleman was Lindo’s curate, that was all. That was all.” They stared at one another in awkward silence. The rector was the first to speak. “I am afraid we are somehow at cross purposes still, Lord Dynmore,” he stammered, his manner constrained. “I am not my own curate—well, because I am myself Reginald Lindo, whom you were kind enough to present to this living.” “To Claversham, do you mean?” “Yes.” “And do you say you are Reginald Lindo?” The peer grew very red in the face as he put this question. “Yes, certainly I am.” “Then, sir, I say that certainly you are not!” was the rapid and startling answer. “Certainly you are not! You are no more Reginald Lindo than I am!” the peer repeated, striking his hand upon the table by his side. “What do you mean by saying that you are, eh? What do you mean by it?” “Lord Dynmore——” But the peer would not listen. “Who are you, sir? Answer me that question first!” he cried. He was a choleric man, and he saw already that there was something seriously amiss; so that the shocked, astonished faces round him tended rather to increase than lessen his wrath. “Answer me that!” “I think, Lord Dynmore, that you must be mad,” replied the rector, his lips quivering. “I am as certainly Reginald Lindo as you are Lord Dynmore!” “But what are you doing here?” retorted the other, storming down the interruption which the archdeacon would have effected. “That is what I want to know. Who made you rector of Claversham?” “The bishop, my lord,” answered the young man sternly. “Ay, but on whose presentation?” “On yours.” “On mine?” “Most assuredly,” replied the clergyman doggedly—“as the archdeacon here, who indicted me, can bear witness.” “It is false!” Lord Dynmore almost screamed. He turned to the panic-stricken listeners, who had instinctively grouped themselves round the two, and appealed to them. “I presented a man nearly thrice his age, do you hear!—a man of sixty. As for this—this Reginald Lindo, I never heard of him in my life! Never! If he had letters of presentation, I did not give them to him.” The young clergyman’s eyes flashed, and his face grew hard as a stone. He guessed already the misfortune which had happened to him, and his heart was sore, as well as full of wrath. But in his pride he betrayed only the anger. “Lord Dynmore,” he said fiercely, “you will have to answer for these insinuations. If there has been any error, the fault has not lain with me!” “An error, you call it, do you? Let me——” “Oh, Lord Dynmore!” Mrs. Hammond gasped.