“I’m going to.  I want your advice.”

When Malling had finished what he had to say, the professor, who had interrupted him two or three times to ask pertinent questions, put his hands on his knees and thrust his head forward.

“You said you wanted advice,” he said.  “What about?”

“I wish you to advise me how I had better proceed.”

“You really think the matter important?” asked the professor.

Malling looked slightly disconcerted.

“You don’t?” he said.

“You are deducing a great deal from not very much.  That’s certain,” observed the professor.

“You never knew Chichester,” retorted Malling.  “I did—­two years ago.”

“Suppose you are right, suppose these two reverend gentlemen have done something such as you suppose—­and that there has been a result, a curious result, what have we to do with it?  Tell me that.”

“You mean that I have no right to endeavor to make a secret investigation into the matter.  But I’m positive both the men want help from me.  I don’t say either of them will ask it.  But I’m certain both of them want it.”

“Two clergymen!” said the professor.  “Two clergymen!  That’s the best of it—­if there is an it, which there may not be.”

“Harding spoke very warmly of you.”

“Good-believing man!  Now, I do wonder what he’s been up to.  I do wonder.  Perhaps he’d have told me but for my confounded habit of sarcasm, my way of repelling the amateur—­repelling!” His arms flew out.  “There’s so much silliness beyond all bearing, credulity beyond all the patience of science.  Table-turning women, feminine men!  ’The spirits guide me, Professor, in every smallest action of my life!’—­Wuff!—­the charlatan battens and breeds.  And the bile rises in one till Carlyle on his worst day might have hailed one as a brother bilious, and so denunciatory—­Jeremiah nervously dyspeptic!  And when you opened your envelop and drew out a couple of clergymen, really, really!  But perhaps I was in a hurry!  Clergymen in a serious fix, too, because of unexpected and not understood success!  And I talk of repelling the amateur!”

Suddenly he paused and, with his bushy eyebrows twitching, looked steadily at Malling.

“I leave it to you,” he said.  “Take your own line.  But don’t forget that, if there’s anything in it, development will take place in the link.  The link will be a center of combat.  The link will be an interesting field for study.”

“The link?” said Malling, interrogatively.

“Goodness gracious me!  Her ladyship!  Her ladyship!” cried out the professor.  “What are you about, Malling?”

And he refused to say another word on the matter till Malling, after much more conversation on other topics, got up to go.  Then, accompanying him to the front door, the professor said: 

“You know I think it’s probably all great nonsense.”