as something in what Mr Westray said. Mr
Sharnall would think it over. He would not write the letter of refusal
that night; he could write to refuse the next day quite as well. In the
meantime he _would_ see to the new pedal-board, and order the
water-engine. Ever since he had seen the water-engine at Carisbury, he
had been convinced that sooner or later they must have one at Cullerne.
It _must_ be ordered; they could decide later on whether it should be
paid for by Lord Blandamer, or should be charged to the general
restoration fund.

This conclusion, however inconclusive, was certainly a triumph for
Westray's persuasive oratory, but his satisfaction was chastened by some
doubts as to how far he was justified in assailing the scrupulous
independence which had originally prompted Mr Sharnall to refuse to
have anything to do with Lord Blandamer's offer. If Mr Sharnall had
scruples in the matter, ought not he, Westray, to have respected those
scruples? Was it not tampering with rectitude to have overcome them by
a too persuasive rhetoric?

His doubts were not allayed by the observation that Mr Sharnall himself
had severely felt the strain of this mental quandary, for the organist
said that he was upset by so difficult a question, and filled himself a
bumper of whisky to steady his nerves. At the same time he took down
from a shelf two or three notebooks and a mass of loose papers, which he
spread open upon the table before him. Westray looked at them with a
glance of unconscious inquiry.

"I must really get to work at these things again," said the organist; "I
have been dreadfully negligent of late. They are a lot of papers and
notes that Martin Joliffe left behind him. Poor Miss Euphemia never had
the heart to go through them. She was going to burn them just as they
were, but I said, `Oh, you mustn't do that; turn them over to me. I
will look into them, and see whether there is anything worth keeping.'
So I took them, but haven't done nearly as much as I ought, what with
one interruption and another. It's always sad going through a dead
man's papers, but sadder when they're all that's left of a life's
labour--lost labour, so far as Martin was concerned, for he was taken
away just when he began to see daylight. `We brought nothing into this
world, and it is certain that we shall carry nothing out.' When that
comes into my mind, I think rather of the _little_ things than of gold
or lands. Intimate letter