Mr. Seccombe laid down his pen, and looked thoughtful. The news sent his thoughts running along an entirely new track. The thread of his sermon was cut clean through, and every effort he made to pick up the ends and splice them proved a dismal failure. From the triumphs of grace his thoughts drifted away to the mysteries of Providence. He pulled himself up with a jerk at length. How much had God to do, after all, with what men called Providence? Was it the purpose of God that his boy Julian should grow into a fighter? Was it part of the same purpose that he should be killed in a distant land by an Arab's lance; that out of that should grow the commercial ruin of one of the saintliest men in the parish; and that his wife, in the closing years of her life, should be driven into the cold shadow of the workhouse? John Seccombe got up from his chair and began to pace up and down the study. He was interrupted in his meditations by a feeble knock on his study door. "Come in," he said, pausing in his walk; and he waited a little impatiently for the door to open. "A young man wants to see you, sir," the housemaid said, opening the door just wide enough to show her face. "Who is he?" "I don't know, sir. He did not give any name." "Some shy young man who wants to get married, I expect," was the thought that passed through Mr. Seccombe's mind. "Show him in," he said, after a pause. And a moment or two later a pale-faced young man came shyly and hesitatingly into the room. He carried a cloth cap in his hand, and was dressed in a badly fitting suit of tweed. Mr. Seccombe looked at him for a moment inquiringly. He thought he knew, by sight, nearly everybody in the parish, but he was not sure that he had seen this young man before. "Will you take a seat?" he said, anxious to put the young man at his ease; for he was still convinced that this was a timid bachelor, who wanted to make arrangements for getting married. "I would prefer to stand, if you don't mind," he answered, toying nervously with his cap. "As you will," the vicar said, with a smile. "I presume you are about to take to yourself a wife?" "Me? Oh dear, no. I've something else to think of." "I beg your pardon," the vicar said, feeling a little confused. "I thought, perhaps----" "Nothing so pleasant," was the hurried answer. "The fact is, I've come upon a job that--well, I hardly know if I can tell it, now I've come." The vicar began to feel interested. "You had better take a seat," he said. "You will feel more comfortable." The young man dropped into an easy-chair and stared at the fire. He was not a bad-looking young fellow. His face was pale, as though he worked underground, and his cheeks were thin enough to suggest too little nourishing food. "The truth is, I only made up my mind an hour ago," he said abruptly. "Yes?" the vicar said encouragingly. "You have heard of that poor woman being carried off to the workhouse, I expect." "You mean Mrs. Penlogan?"