green shade, and for a second or two the Master did not perceive that some one stood a pace or two from it in the penumbra. "Master!"

"Hey!"-with a start-"Is it Simeon? My good Simeon, you made me jump. What brings you back here at this hour? You've forgotten some paper, I suppose."

"No, Master."

"What then?"

By the faint greenish light the Master missed to observe that Mr. Simeon's face was deadly pale.

"Master, I have come to make confession-to throw myself on your mercy! For a long time-for a year almost-I have been living dishonestly. Master, do you believe in miracles?"

For a moment there was no answer. Master Blanchminster walked back to an electric button beside the door, and turned on more light with a finger that trembled slightly.

"If you have been living dishonestly, Simeon, I certainly shall believe in miracles."

"But I mean real miracles, Master."

"You are agitated, Simeon. Take a seat and tell me your trouble in your own way-beginning, if you please, with the miracle.”

"It was that which brought me.

I could not find courage

Until it happened

Mr. Simeon's eyes wandered to this side and that, as though they still sought a last chance of escape. "The facts, if you please?"

The Master's voice had of a sudden become cold, even stern. He flung the words much as one dashes a cupful of water in the face of an hysterical woman. They brought Mr. Simeon to himself. His gaze shivered and fixed itself on the Master's, as in a compass-box you may see the needle tremble to magnetic north. He gripped the arms of his chair, caught his voice, and went on desperately.

"This afternoon it was. . . . On my way here I went around, as I go daily, by the Cathedral, to hear if the workmen have found any fresh defects. They had opened a new pit by the south-east corner, a few yards from the first, and as I came by one of the men was levering away with a crowbar at a large stone not far below the surface. I waited while he worked it loose, and then, lifting it with both hands, he flung it on to the edge of the pit. By the shape we knew it at once for an old grave-stone that, falling down long ago, had somehow sunk and been covered by the turf. There was lettering, too, upon the undermost side when the man turned it over. He scraped the earth away with the flat of his hands, and together we made out what was written."

Mr. Simeon fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, drew forth a scrap of paper, and handed it to the Master.

"I copied it down then and there: no, not at once. At first I looked up, afraid to see the whole building falling, falling upon me

The Master did not hear. He had unfolded the paper. Adjusting his spectacles, he read, God have Mercy on the Soul of Giles Tonkin. Obiit. Dec. 17th, 1643. No man can serve two masters.

"A strange text for a tombstone," he commented. "And the date-1643? That is the year when our city surrendered in the Parliament wars. . . . Who knows but this may have marked the grave of a man shot because he hesitated too long in taking sides

or perchance in his flurry he took both, and tried to serve two masters."

so! I mean that, whether he knew it or not, he died

to save me

that his stone has risen

up

for witness, driving me to you. Ah, do not weaken me, now that I am here to confess!"

And leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands spread to hide his face, Mr. Simeon blurted out his confession.

When he had ended there was silence in the room for a space.

"Tarbolt!" murmured the Master, just audibly and no more. "If it had been anyone but Tarbolt!" There was another silence, broken only by one slow sob.

"For either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Simeon, which was I?"

Mr. Simeon forced himself to look up. Tears were in his eyes, but they shone.

"Master, can you doubt?"

"I am sorry to appear brutal," said Master Blanchminster, coldly and wearily, "but my experiences today have been somewhat trying for an old man. May I ask if, on taking your resolution to confess, you came straight to me; or if, receiving just dismissal from my service, you yet hold Canon Tarbolt in reserve?" Mr. Simeon stood up.

"I have behaved so badly to you, sir, that you have a right to ask it. But as a fact I went to Canon Tarbolt first, and said I could no longer work for him." "Sit down, please. . . . How many children have you, Mr. Simeon?"

"Seven, sir. . . . The seventh arrived a fortnight ago-yesterday fortnight, to be precise. A fine boy, I am happy to say."

He looked up pitifully. The Master stood above him, smiling down; and while the Master's stature seemed to have taken some additional inches, his smile seemed to irradiate the room.

"Simeon, I begin to think it high time I raised your salary."

CHAPTER XXIII

CORONA'S BIRTHDAY

THE May-fly season had come around again, and Corona was spending her Saturday-the Greycoats' holiday—with Brother Copas by the banks of Mere. They had brought their frugal luncheon in the creel which was to contain the trout Brother Copas hoped to catch. He hoped to catch a brace at least-one for his sick friend at home, the other to replenish his own empty cupboard: for this excursion meant his missing to attend at the kitchen and receive his daily dole.

There may have been thunder in the air. At any rate the fish refused to feed; and after an hour's patient waiting for sign of a rise-without which his angling would be but idle pains-Brother Copas found a seat, and pulled out a book from his pocket, while Corona wandered over the meadows in search of larks' nests. But this again was pains thrown. away; since, as Brother Copas afterwards explained, in the first place the buttercups hid them, and secondly the nests were not there!-the birds preferring the high chalky downs for their nurseries. She knew,