uering Hero' as the Bishop enters the church, I shall need time for
practice. A piece like that takes some playing, you know."

"I hope you will endeavour to render it in the very best manner," the
Rector said, and withdrew his forces _re infecta_.

The story of Mr Sharnall's mental illusions, and particularly of the
hallucination as to someone following him, had left an unpleasant
impression on Westray's mind. He was anxious about his fellow-lodger,
and endeavoured to keep a kindly supervision over him, as he felt it to
be possible that a person in such a state might do himself a mischief.
On most evenings he either went down to Mr Sharnall's room, or asked
the organist to come upstairs to his, considering that the solitude
incident to bachelor life in advancing years was doubtless to blame to a
large extent for these wandering fancies. Mr Sharnall occupied himself
at night in sorting and reading the documents which had once belonged to
Martin Joliffe. There was a vast number of them, representing the
accumulation of a lifetime, and consisting of loose memoranda, of
extracts from registers, of manuscript-books full of pedigrees and
similar material. When he had first begun to examine them, with a view
to their classification or destruction, he showed that the task was
distinctly uncongenial to him; he was glad enough to make any excuse for
interruption or for invoking Westray's aid. The architect, on the other
hand, was by nature inclined to archaeologic and genealogic studies, and
would not have been displeased if Mr Sharnall had handed over to him
the perusal of these papers entirely. He was curious to trace the
origin of that chimera which had wasted a whole life--to discover what
had led Martin originally to believe that he had a claim to the
Blandamer peerage. He found, perhaps, an additional incentive in an
interest which he was beginning unconsciously to take in Anastasia
Joliffe, whose fortunes might be supposed to be affected by these
investigations.

But in a little while Westray noticed a change in the organist's
attitude as touching the papers. Mr Sharnall evinced a dislike to the
architect examining them further; he began himself to devote a good deal
more time and attention to their study, and he kept them jealously under
lock and key. Westray's nature led him to resent anything that
suggested suspicion; he at once ceased to concern himself with the
matter, and took care to show Mr Sharnall th