The maid went out.  From behind the folding-doors came to Malling’s ears the sound of splashing water, then a voice saying, certainly to the maid, “Thank you, Ellen, I will come.”  And in three minutes Chichester was in the room, apologizing.

“I was kept late in the parish.  There’s a good deal to do.”

“You’re not overworked?” asked Malling.

“Do I look so?” said Chichester, quickly.

He turned round and gazed at himself in an oval Venetian mirror which was fixed to the wall just behind him.  His manner for a moment was oddly absorbed as he examined his face.

“London life tells on one, I suppose,” he said, again turning.  “We change, of course, in appearance as we go on.”

His blue eyes seemed to be seeking something in Malling’s impenetrable face.

“Do you think,” he said, “I am much altered since we used to meet two years ago?  It would of course be natural enough if I were.”

Malling looked at him for a minute steadily.

“In appearance, you mean?”

“Of course.”

“To-night it seems to me that you have altered a good deal.”

“To-night?” said the curate, as if with anxiety.

“If there is any change,—­and I think there is,—­it seems to me more apparent to-night than it was when I saw you the other day.”

Ellen, the maid, entered the room bearing a tray on which was a soup-tureen.

“Oh, dinner!” said Chichester.  “Let us sit down.  You won’t mind simple fare, I hope.  We are having soup, mutton,—­I am not sure what else.”

“Stewed fruit, sir,” interpolated Ellen.

“To be sure!  Stewed fruit and custard.  Open the claret, Ellen, please.”

“Have you been in these rooms long?” asked Malling, as they unfolded their napkins.

“Two years.  All the time I have been at St. Joseph’s.  The rector told me of them.  The curate who preceded me had occupied them.”

“What became of him?”

“He has a living in Northampton now.  But when he left he had nothing in view.”

“He was tired of work at St. Joseph’s?”

“I don’t think he got on with the rector.”

The drip of the rain became audible outside, and a faint sound of footsteps on the pavement.

“Possibly I shall not stay much longer,” he added.

“No doubt you’ll take a living.”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know.  But, in any case, I may not stay much longer—­perhaps.  That will do, Ellen; you may go and fetch the mutton.  Put the claret on the table, please.”

When the maid was gone, he added: 

“One doesn’t want a servant in the room listening to all one says.  As she was standing behind me I had forgotten she was here.  How it rains to-night!  I hate the sound of rain.”

“It is dismal,” said Malling, thinking of his depression while he had walked to Hornton Street.

“Do you mind,” said the curate, slightly lowering his voice, “if I speak rather—­rather confidentially to you?”