mmer, a
broad, strong, cruel-looking thumb, flat and sinister-looking as the head
of a snake. In the centre, like a pink pearl dropped in a filthy gutter,
was one tiny, perfectly-formed nail.

The owner of the thumb stepped back the better to give way to a fit of
hoarse laughter. He turned slightly aside and his eyes met those of
Chris. They were small eyes set in a coarse, brutal face, the face of a
criminal, Chris thought, if she were a judge of such matters. It came
quite as a shock to see that the stranger was in clerical garb.

"I--I beg your pardon," Chris stammered. "But I--"

Henson emerged from the arbour. For once in a way he appeared confused,
there was a flush on his face that told of annoyance ill suppressed.

"Please don't go away," he said. "Mr. Merritt will think that he has
alarmed you. Miss Lee, this is my very good friend and co-worker in the
field, the Reverend James Merritt."

"Is Mr. Merritt a friend of Lord Littimer's?" Chris asked, demurely.

"Littimer hates the cloth," Henson replied "Indeed, he has no sympathy
whatever with my work. I met my good friend quite by accident in the
village just now, and I brought him here for a chat. Mr. Merritt is
taking a well-earned holiday."

Chris replied graciously that she didn't doubt it. She did not deem it
necessary to add that she knew that one of Mr. Henson's mystic telegrams
had been addressed to one James Merritt at an address in Moreton Wells, a
town some fifteen miles away. That the scoundrel was up to no good she
knew perfectly well.

"Your work must be very interesting," she said. "Have you been in the
Church long, Mr. Merritt?"

Merritt said hoarsely that he had not been in the Church very long. His
dreadful grin and fog voice suggested that he was a brand plucked from
the burning, and that he had only recently come over to the side of the
angels. The whole time he spoke he never met Chris's glance once. The
chaplain of a convict prison would have turned from him in disgust.
Henson was obviously ill at ease. In his suave, diplomatic way he
contrived to manoeuvre Merritt off the ground at length.

"An excellent fellow," he said, with exaggerated enthusiasm. "It was a
great day for us when we won over James Merritt. He can reach a class
which hitherto we have not touched."

"He looks as if he had been in gaol," Chris said.

"Oh, he has," Henson admitted, candidly. "Many a time."

Chris deemed it just possible that the unpleasant expe