therefore he had taken Miss Brabazon at her word, and the MS. was no more. Its destruction was really demanded by the inexplicable fact that the story was the true story of a discreditable case in which the infamous Lord Mulcaster had actually figured; and the further fact that Miss Brabazon had nevertheless invented it, so far as she personally was aware, would have constituted another and still more interesting case for the Psychical Research Society, but for the aforesaid objections to its publication in any shape or form.

All this made a document difficult to draw up, and none too convincing when drawn; but that was partly because the collaborators were already divided over every feature of the extraordinary affair, which indeed afforded food for argument for many a day to come. But in the meantime our dear Miss Julia accepted sentence and execution with a gentle and even a jocose resignation which made us both miserable. We did not even know that there had been any real occasion for the holocaust for which we claimed responsibility, or to what extent or lengths the unconscious plagiarism had proceeded. Delavoye, of course, took the view that coincided with his precious theory, whereas I argued from Mr. Brabazon's coolness that we had heard the worst.

But the Vicar always was cool out of the pulpit; and it was almost a pity that we rewarded his moderation by going to church the next Sunday, for I never shall forget his ferocious sermon on the modern purveyor of pernicious literature. He might have been raving from bitter experience, as Delavoye of course declared he was. But there is one redeeming point in my recollection of his tirade. And that is a vivid and consoling vision of the elder Miss Brabazon, listening with a rapt and unconscious serenity to every burning word.

CHAPTER V

The Angel of Life

Coplestone was the first of our tenants who had taken his house through me, and I was extremely proud of him. It was precisely the pride of the mighty hunter in his first kill; for Coplestone was big game in his way, and even of a leonine countenance, with his crested wave of tawny hair and his clear sunburnt skin. In early life, as an incomparable oar, he had made a name which still had a way of creeping into the sporting papers; and at forty the same fine figure and untarnished face were a walking advertisement of virtue. But now he had also the grim eyes and stubborn jaw of the man who has faced big trouble; he wore sombre ties that suggested the kind of trouble it had been; and he settled down among us to a 

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