come fishing in Leicestershire.  Ransford was a few years the younger—­he was either a medical student in his last year, or he was an assistant somewhere in London.  Brake—­was a bank manager in London—­of a branch of one of the big banks.  They were pleasant young fellows, and I used to ask them to the vicarage.  Eventually, Mary Bewery and John Brake became engaged to be married.  My wife and I were a good deal surprised—­we had believed, somehow, that the favoured man would be Ransford.  However, it was Brake—­and Brake she married, and, as you say, Ransford was best man.  Of course, Brake took his wife off to London—­and from the day of her wedding, I never saw her again.”

“Did you ever see Brake again?” asked Bryce.  The old clergyman shook his head.

“Yes!” he said sadly.  “I did see Brake again—­under grievous, grievous circumstances!”

“You won’t mind telling me what circumstances?” suggested Bryce.  “I will keep your confidence, Mr. Gilwaters.”

“There is really no secret in it—­if it comes to that,” answered the old man.  “I saw John Brake again just once.  In a prison cell!”

“A prison cell!” exclaimed Bryce.  “And he—­a prisoner?”

“He had just been sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude,” replied Mr. Gilwaters.  “I had heard the sentence—­I was present.  I got leave to see him.  Ten years’ penal servitude! —­a terrible punishment.  He must have been released long ago —­but I never heard more.”

Bryce reflected in silence for a moment—­reckoning and calculating.

“When was this—­the trial?” he asked.

“It was five years after the marriage—­seventeen years ago,” replied Mr. Gilwaters.

“And—­what had he been doing?” inquired Bryce.

“Stealing the bank’s money,” answered the old man.  “I forget what the technical offence was—­embezzlement, or something of that sort.  There was not much evidence came out, for it was impossible to offer any defence, and he pleaded guilty.  But I gathered from what I heard that something of this sort occurred.  Brake was a branch manager.  He was, as it were, pounced upon one morning by an inspector, who found that his cash was short by two or three thousand pounds.  The bank people seemed to have been unusually strict and even severe —­Brake, it was said, had some explanation, but it was swept aside and he was given in charge.  And the sentence was as I said just now—­a very savage one, I thought.  But there had recently been some bad cases of that sort in the banking world, and I suppose the judge felt that he must make an example.  Yes—­a most trying affair!—­I have a report of the case somewhere, which I cut out of a London newspaper at the time.”

Mr. Gilwaters rose and turned to an old desk in the corner of his room, and after some rummaging of papers in a drawer, produced a newspaper-cutting book and traced an insertion in its pages.  He handed the book to his visitor.