m definite hallucination, and I was
aware that any illusions connected with religion are generally most
difficult to remove. At the same time, anything of this sort was the
more remarkable in Sir John's case, as he had, so far as I knew, for a
considerable time entirely abandoned the Christian belief.

Unable to elicit any further information from him, and being thus thrown
entirely upon my own resources, I determined that I would read through
again the whole of Temple's diaries. The task was a very distasteful
one, as I have already explained, but I hoped that a second reading
might perhaps throw some light on the dark misgiving that was troubling
Sir John. I read the manuscript again with the closest attention.
Nothing, however, of any importance seemed to have escaped me on the
former occasions, and I had reached nearly the end of the second volume
when a comparatively slight matter arrested my attention. I have said
that the pages were all carefully numbered, and the events of each day
recorded separately; even where Temple had found nothing of moment to
notice on a given day, he had still inserted the date with the word
_nil_ written against it. But as I sat one evening in the library at
Worth after Sir John had gone to bed, and was finally glancing through
the days of the months in Temple's diary to make sure that all were
complete, I found one day was missing. It was towards the end of the
second volume, and the day was the 23d of October in the year 1752. A
glance at the numbering of the pages revealed the fact that three leaves
had been entirely removed, and that the pages numbered 349 to 354 were
not to be found. Again I ran through the diaries to see whether there
were any leaves removed in other places, but found no other single page
missing. All was complete except at this one place, the manuscript
beautifully written, with scarcely an error or erasure throughout. A
closer examination showed that these leaves had been cut out close to
the back, and the cut edges of the paper appeared too fresh to admit of
this being done a century ago. A very short reflection convinced me, in
fact, that the excision was not likely to have been Temple's, and that
it must have been made by Sir John.

My first intention was to ask him at once what the lost pages had
contained, and why they had been cut out. The matter might be a mere
triviality which he could explain in a moment. But on softly opening his
bedroom door I found