month of March 1881, and to reach England safely. I fear it is only
too often the case in this world--wickedness is apt to be
successful."

"To flourish like a green bay tree," said Mark Shrewsbury,
congratulating himself on the aptness of the quotation, and its
suitability to the Archediaconal dinner-table. "It is the strangest
story I have heard for a long time." Just then there was a pause in
the general conversation, and Mrs. Selldon took advantage of it to
make the sign for rising, so that no more passed with regard to
Zaluski.

Shrewsbury, flattering himself that he had left a good impression by
his last remark, thought better not to efface it later in the
evening by any other conversation with his hostess. But in the
small hours of the night, when he had finished his bundle of proofs,
he took up his notebook and, strangling his yawns, made two or three
brief, pithy notes of the story Mrs. Selldon had told him, adding a
further development which occurred to him, and wondering to himself
whether "Like a Green Bay Tree" would be a selling title.

After this he went to bed, and slept the sleep of the just, or the
unbroken sleep which goes by that name.



MY SIXTH STAGE