“Such as myself!  Then you think he’s caught something of my manner and way of looking at things?  You think—­”

“Really, it’s difficult to say,” interrupted Malling.  “He’s developed, no doubt.  But very few people don’t.  I suppose you’ve trained him.”

“I!” said the rector.  “I train a man like Chichester!”

In his voice there was a bitter irony.

“Is that you, Mr. Malling?” said the voice of Lady Sophia.  “I was lying down with a book.  This is my little room.”

She looked pale, almost haggard, as the sunshine fell upon her through the open window.

Malling took his leave at once and she did not attempt to detain him.

“I hope you’ll come again,” she said, as they shook hands.  “Perhaps on another Sunday morning, to church and lunch.  I’ll let you know.”

She said the last words with a significance which made Malling understand that she did not wish him to come to church at St. Joseph’s again till she gave him the word.

The rector let him out of the house.  Not another word was spoken about Henry Chichester.  As his guest walked away the rector stood, bareheaded, looking after him, then, as Malling turned the corner of the gardens, with a heavy sigh, and the unconscious gesture of a man greatly troubled in mind, he stepped back into his hall and shut the door behind him.

IV

A week later, Mailing paid a visit to Professor Stepton.  He had heard nothing of the Hardings and Chichester since the day of the luncheon in Onslow Gardens, but they had seldom been absent from his thoughts, and more than once he had looked at the words, “Dine with H.C.” in his book of engagements, and had found himself wishing that “Hornton Street, Wednesday” was not so far distant.

The professor lived in Westminster, in a house with Adam ceilings, not far from the Houses of Parliament.  He was unmarried, and Malling found him alone after dinner, writing busily in his crowded library.  He had but recently returned from Paris, whither he had traveled to take part in a series of “sittings” with the famous medium, Mrs. Groeber.

In person the professor was odd, without being specially striking.  He was of medium height, thin and sallow, with gray whiskers, thick gray hair, bushy eyebrows, and small, pointed and inquiring features which gave him rather the aspect of a prying bird.  His eyes were little and sparkling.  His mouth, strangely enough, was ecclesiastical.  He nearly always wore very light-colored clothes.  Even in winter he was often to be seen clad in yellow-gray tweeds, a yellow silk necktie, and a fawn-colored Homburg hat.  And no human being had ever encountered him in a pair of boots unprotected by spats.  One peculiarity of his was that he did not possess a walking-stick, another that he had never—­so at least he declared—­owned a pocket-handkerchief, having had no occasion to use one at any moment of his long and varied life.  When it rained he sometimes carried an umbrella, generally shut.  At other times he moved briskly along with his arms swinging at his sides.