Another man would, perhaps, have relented, but his system was wrought into his very marrow—­a part of himself in a manner incomprehensible.  The distinction between the world and the Church is now nothing to us.  We are on the best of terms with people who every Sunday are expressly assigned to everlasting fire.  But to Michael the distinction was what it was to Ephraim MacBriar.  The Spirit descended on him—­whose spirit, it is not for us to say.

“Are you sure of Miss Shipton, Robert?”

“Sure of her, father!  What do you mean?”

“Do you know what she has been in time past?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Do you know why Cadman left the Shiptons?”

Robert stopped suddenly as if struck by a blow, and then his behaviour instantly changed.  He completely forgot himself and was furious.

“Father, I say it is a wicked, cruel shame—­a wicked, cruel lie.  I do not care if I tell you so.  I will not listen to it,” and he tore himself away.

He believed it was a lie—­believed it with the same distinctness as he believed in the existence of the hedge by his side which lacerated his hand as he turned round; and yet the lie struck him like a poisoned barbed arrow, and he could not drag himself loose from it.  No man could have loved Desdemona better than Othello, and yet, before there was any evidence, did he not say of Iago—­

              “This honest creature doubtless
  Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.”

He went home, and on his way to his room upstairs he passed through the little office in which he and his father made out their bills and kept their accounts.  On the desk lay half a sheet of a letter.  He looked at it at first mechanically, and then began to read with the most intense interest.  It was only half a sheet, and the other half was nowhere to be found.  It ran as follows:—­

“and I can assure you I cannot afford to marry.  Besides, I don’t know that she cares anything for me now.  It was very wrong; but, sir, when you remember that I am a young man and that Susan was so attractive, I think I may be forgiven.  I hope some day to make her amends if she still loves me, but, sir, I must wait.—­Yours truly,

         “WALTER CADMAN.

“MR. MICHAEL TREVANION.”

This was the plot.  The Shiptons some short time ago had an assistant in their employ, who was dismissed for improper intimacy with a servant-girl named Susan Coleman, who lived next door.  As was the case with most servant-girls in those days, nobody ever heard her surname, and she was known by the name of Susan only.  The affair was kept a profound secret, for she was a member of the congregation to which Michael belonged; and Mr. Shipton, for trade reasons, was anxious that it should not be made public.  Michael, as one of the deacons, knew all about it, but Robert knew nothing.  The girl left her place before the consequences of her crime became public; and Michael had written to the man Cadman, telling him he ought to support the child of which he was the father.  When he received the answer, a sudden thought struck him.  The last page might be used for a purpose, and so he hatched his monstrous scheme, and left the paper where he knew that, sooner or later, Robert would see it.