“Yes, sir?” she said.

“Is Mr. Chichester at home?”

“He is in, sir, poor gentleman,” replied the maid.  “Did you want to see him?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure I don’t know whether he will see you, sir.”

“Is he ill?”

“Not to say ill, sir.  But haven’t you heard?”

“What?”

“His poor rector’s gone, sir, what used to come here to visit him so regular.  I never see a gentleman in such a way.  Why, he’s so changed I don’t hardly know him.”

“Have you been here long?” said Mailing, abruptly.

“Only six months, sir.”

The maid began to look rather astonished.

“And so Mr. Chichester is quite altered by his grief?”

“You never did, sir!  He was so firm, wasn’t he, above every one!  Even his rector used to look to him and be guided by him.  And now he’s as gentle and weak almost as a new-born child, as they say.”

Malling thought of Stepton.  Had he looked forward to some such change?

“Perhaps I could console Mr. Chichester in his grief,” he said.  “Will you take him this card and ask if I can see him?  I knew Mr. Harding, too.  I might be of use, possibly.”

“I’ll ask him, sir.  He’s laying down on the bed, I do believe.”

Ellen hurried up-stairs with the card.  It seemed to Malling that she was away for a long time.  At last she returned.

“If you please, sir, Mr. Chichester wants to know if it’s anything important.  He’s feeling very bad, poor gentleman.  But of course if it’s anything important, he wouldn’t for all the world say no.”

“It is important.”

“Then I was to ask you to walk in, sir, please.”

Chichester’s sitting-room was empty when Malling came into it, and the folding-doors between it and the bedroom were shut.  Ellen went away, and Malling heard a faint murmur of voices, and then Ellen’s footstep retreating down the stairs.  Silence followed.  He waited, at first standing.  Then he sat down near the piano.  Not a sound reached him from the bedroom.  On the curate’s table lay a book.  Malling took it up.  The title was “God’s Will be Done.”  The author was a well-known high-church divine, Father Rowton.  To him, then, Henry Chichester betook himself for comfort.  The piano stood open.  On it was music.  Malling looked and saw, “Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove!” by Mendelssohn.  The little room seemed full of pious orthodoxy.  Surely its atmosphere was utterly changed since Malling last was in it.  The melody of “Oh, for the wings!” went through his brain.  That the Henry Chichester he had recently known, that cruel searcher after and expounder of truth, that he should be helped by those words, by that melody, in an hour of sorrow!

There was a movement in the bedroom.  The folding-doors opened inward, and the curate appeared.  He was very pale, and looked really ill.  His face had fallen in.  His fair hair was slightly disordered, and his blue eyes were surrounded by red rims.  His expression suggested that he had recently undergone an extremely violent shock, which had shaken badly both body and mind.  He looked dazed.  Coming forward feebly, he held out his hand.