the road, noting its familiar features. The small
shops were on his right hand, the line of rails behind them. A few white
villas lay scattered on his left, and beyond them, but not to be seen
from this village street, wound the river; both running parallel with the
village lying between them. Soon the houses ceased; it was a small place
at best; and after an open space came the church. It lay on his right, a
little way back from the road, and surrounded by a large churchyard.
Almost opposite, on the other side of the road, but much further back,
was a handsome modern white house; its delightful gardens sloping almost
to the river. This was the residence of the Rector, Dr. Ashton, a wealthy
man and a church dignitary, prebendary and sub-dean of Garchester
Cathedral. Percival Elster looked at it yearningly, if haply he might see
there the face of one he loved well; but the blinds were drawn, and the
inmates were no doubt steeped in repose.

"If she only knew I was here!" he fondly aspirated.

On again a few steps, and a slight turn in the road brought him to a
small red-brick house on the same side as the church, with green shutters
attached to its lower windows. It lay in the midst of a garden well
stocked with vegetables, fruit, and the more ordinary and brighter
garden-flowers. A straight path led to the well-kept house-door, its
paint fresh and green, and its brass-plate as bright as rubbing could
make it. Mr. Elster could not read the inscription on the plate from
where he was, but he knew it by heart: "Jabez Gum, Parish Clerk." And
there was a smaller plate indicating other offices held by Jabez Gum.

"I wonder if Jabez is as shadowy as ever?" thought Mr. Elster, as he
walked on.

One more feature, and that is the last you shall hear of until Hartledon
is reached. Close to the clerk's garden, on a piece of waste land, stood
a small wooden building, no better than a shed.

It had once been a stable, but so long as Percival Elster could remember,
it was nothing but a receptacle for schoolboys playing at hide-and-seek.
Many a time had he hidden there. Something different in this shed now
caught his eye; the former doorway had been boarded up, and a long iron
tube, like a thin chimney, ascended from its roof.

"Who on earth has been adding that to it?" exclaimed Mr. Elster.

A little way onward, and he came to the lodge-gates of Hartledon. The
house was on the same side as the Rectory, its park stretching eastwar