Malling looked slightly disconcerted.

"You don't?" he said.

"You are deducing a great deal from not very much. That's certain,"
observed the professor.

"You never knew Chichester," retorted Malling. "I did--two years ago."

"Suppose you are right, suppose these two reverend gentlemen have done
something such as you suppose--and that there has been a result, a
curious result, what have we to do with it? Tell me that."

"You mean that I have no right to endeavor to make a secret investigation
into the matter. But I'm positive both the men want help from me. I don't
say either of them will ask it. But I'm certain both of them want it."

"Two clergymen!" said the professor. "Two clergymen! That's the best of
it--if there is an it, which there may not be."

"Harding spoke very warmly of you."

"Good-believing man! Now, I do wonder what he's been up to. I do
wonder. Perhaps he'd have told me but for my confounded habit of
sarcasm, my way of repelling the amateur--repelling!" His arms flew out.
"There's so much silliness beyond all bearing, credulity beyond all the
patience of science. Table-turning women, feminine men! 'The spirits
guide me, Professor, in every smallest action of my life!'--Wuff!--the
charlatan battens and breeds. And the bile rises in one till Carlyle on
his worst day might have hailed one as a brother bilious, and so