“Not in my church.”

“It isn’t your letter, anyhow.  You didn’t write it.”

“It is written on the official paper of the church.  Smithson told me so.  He didn’t understand what use would be made of it when he wrote it.  Take your check back, Dr. Surtaine, and give me the letter.”

“Persistency, thy name is a jewel,” said Dr. Surtaine with an air of scholarliness.  “You win.  The letter will be returned to-morrow.  You’ll take my word, I suppose?”

“Certainly; and thank you.”

“And now, suppose I offered to leave the check in your hands?” asked the Doctor curiously.

“I couldn’t take it,” came the decisive reply.

“Do you mind telling me why?”

The visitor spread out upon the table the newspaper page which he had taken from his pocket.  “This morning’s ‘Clarion,’” he said.

“So that’s the trouble!  You’ve been reading that blackmailing sheet.  Why, what’s the ‘Clarion,’ anyway?  A scandal-mongering, yellow blatherskite, on its last legs financially.  It’s for sale to any bidder who’d be fool enough to put up money.  The ‘Clarion’ went after me because it couldn’t get our business.  It ain’t any straighter than a corkscrew’s shadow.”

“Do I understand you to say that this attack is due to your refusal to advertise in the ’Clarion’?”

“That’s it, to a T. And now, you see, Mr. Hale,” continued Dr. Surtaine in a tone of long-suffering and dignified injury, “how believing all you see in print lures you into chasing after strange dogs.”

The visitor’s mouth quivered a little at this remarkable paraphrase of the Scripture passage; but he said gravely enough: 

“Then we get back to the original charges, which the ‘Clarion’ quotes from the ‘Church Standard.’”

“And there you are!  Up to three years ago the ‘Standard’ took all the advertising we’d give them, and glad to get it.  Then it went daffy over the muckraking magazine exposures, and threw out all the proprietary copy.  Now nothing will do but it must roast its old patrons to show off its new virtue.”

“Do you deny what the editor of the ‘Standard’ said about Certina?”

Dr. Surtaine employed the stock answer of medical quackery when challenged on incontrovertible facts.  “Why, my friend,” he said with elaborate carelessness, “if I tried to deny everything that irresponsible parties say about me, I wouldn’t have any time left for business.  Well, well; plenty of other people will be glad of that two thousand.  Turn in the check at the cashier’s window, please.  Good-day to you.”

The Reverend Norman Hale retired, leaving the “Clarion’s” denunciation lying outspread on the table.

Meantime, wandering in the hallway, Hal had encountered Milly Neal.

“Are you very busy, Miss Neal?” he asked.

“Not more than usual,” she answered, regarding him with bright and kindly eyes.  “Did you want me?”