yield to my prayers. Moreover, I can plead, and——" here he smiled complacently as he thought of his pulpit eloquence. Besides, the unaccustomed spirit of the rum was still keeping him brave.

Pence sauntered in the glowing sunshine down the narrow path which ran between the standing corn. The path was not straight. It wound deviously, as though Huxham wished to make the approach to his abode as difficult as possible. Indeed, it was strange that he should sow corn at all, since corn at the time was not remunerative. But every year since he had entered into possession of Bleacres the owner had sown corn, and every year there had only been the one meandering path through the same, the very path which Pence was now taking. There was evidently some purpose in this sowing, and in the fact that only one pathway was left whereby to approach the mansion. But what that purpose might be, neither Pence, nor indeed anyone else, could guess. Not that they gave it a thought. Huxham was presumed to be very wealthy, and his farming was looked upon more as a hobby than a necessity.

The preacher brushed between the breast-high corn, and walked over two or three narrow planks laid across two or three narrow ditches. But where the corn ended was a wide channel, at least ten feet broad, which stretched the whole length of the estate and passed beyond it on its way under the railway line to the distant river. The water-way ran straightly for some distance, and then curved down into the marshes at its own will, to spread into swamps. On one side sprang the thick green corn, but on the other stretched waste-lands up to the outskirts of the village, one mile distant. There was no fence round Bleacres at this point. Apparently, Huxham deemed the wide channel a sufficient protection to his corn, which it assuredly was, as no tramps ever trespassed on the land. But then, Marshely was not a tramp village. The inhabitants were poor, and had nothing to give in the way of charity. The loafer of the roads avoided the locality for very obvious reasons.

Before crossing the planks, which were laid on mid-channel supporting tressels over the water-way, Pence looked from right to left. The evening was so very beautiful that he thought he would prolong his walk until sundown, and it wanted some time to that hour. He was still indignant with Captain Huxham for his base offer, and came to the conclusion that the ex-mariner was mad when he made it. Pence, in his simplicity, could not think that any man could ask another to kill a third in cold blood. All the same, the offer had been made, and Silas found himself asking why Huxham should desire the death 

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