he kept the conversation going on church music, sacred art in Italy,
and other eminently safe and respectable topics till it was time for
Malling to go.

Only when he was letting his guest out into the night did he seem
troubled once more. He clasped Malling's hand in his, as if almost
unaware that he was doing so, and said with some hesitation:

"Are you--are you going to see the rector again?"

"Not that I know of," said Malling, speaking the strict truth, and
virtually telling a lie at the same time.

For he was determined, if possible, to see Mr. Harding, and that before
very long.

"If I may say so," Chichester said, shifting from one foot to another and
looking down at the rain-sodden pavement, "I wouldn't see him."

"May I ask you why?"

"You may get a wrong impression. Two years ago he was another man.
Strangers, of course, may not know it, not realize it. But we who have
lived with him do know it. Mr. Harding is going down the hill."

There was a note of deep sadness in his voice. Had he been speaking of
himself, of his own decadence, his tone could scarcely have been more
melancholy.

And for long Malling remembered the look in his eyes as he drew back to