“Doctor,” he proceeded, “I have been thinking over this matter; I know you want the money, and I am sorry for it.  That I have myself been a gainer by my connection with you, I will not attempt to deny, and I do not think that I should be grateful or a sincere friend to you, if I saw you now in such grievous and unexpected embarrassments without making an effort to assist you.  You shall have the four hundred, if you consent to the same rate of interest I was about to receive for it from the other party.”

“Then you will break faith with him,” replied the doctor.  “I thank you, Purcel, but I will not have it.”

“I break no faith with him,” replied the proctor; “he was bound to have let me know, on yesterday, whether he would require the money or not, for the matter was conditional; but as I have not yet heard from him, I hold myself at liberty to act as I wish.  The fault is his own.”

“And on these conditions, so you are; I well, thank you again, Purcel, I accept this money on your terms, eight per cent.  Nay, you oblige me very much; indeed you do.”

“Well, then, that matter is settled,” said the proctor, “do not speak of it,” he proceeded, in reply to the doctor’s last observation; “I should indeed be unworthy either of your good opinion or my own, if I held aloof from you just now.  I will have a bond prepared in a day or two, but in the meantime, if you will call at my house, you may have the money home with you.”

The doctor once more thanked Mm, and they were in the act of returning to the house, when the noise of a pistol was heard, and at the same moment a bullet whistled light between them, and so close to each that it was utterly impossible to say at which of the two individuals the murderous aim had been taken.  The garden, a large one and highly walled in, was entered by two gates, one of which led into the back yard, the other into a corner of the lawn that was concealed from the house by a clump of trees.  The latter gate, which was not so large as the other, had in it a small iron grating a little above the centre, through which any one could command a view of the greater portion of the garden.  It was through this gate they had entered, and as no apprehension of any attempt of assassination had existed in the mind of either, they left the key in the outside, not having deemed it at all necessary to secure the door, by locking it within.

The proctor, to whose cowardice the worthy clergyman had not long before paid so sincere, but by no means so flattering a tribute, did not wait to make even a single observation, but ran with all his speed towards the gate, which, to his surprise and mortification, he found locked on the outside.  Apprehensive, however, of a second attack, he beckoned to his companion to hasten towards the other gate, which was not visible from that through which the shot had been fired, and in the meantime, he himself ran also towards it, in order to try whether it might not be possible to get