roduced a spark,
and was kindling the brimstone, when he fancied that he heard a movement
in the passage. He blew harder at the lint, the match flared up, and
looking by aid of the blue light through the door, which had been
standing open all this time, he was surprised to see a male figure
vanishing round the top of the staircase with the evident intention of
escaping unobserved. The personage wore the clothes which Lizzy had been
brushing, and something in the outline and gait suggested to the minister
that the wearer was Lizzy herself.

But he was not sure of this; and, greatly excited, Stockdale determined
to investigate the mystery, and to adopt his own way for doing it. He
blew out the match without lighting the candle, went into the passage,
and proceeded on tiptoe towards Lizzy's room. A faint grey square of
light in the direction of the chamber-window as he approached told him
that the door was open, and at once suggested that the occupant was gone.
He turned and brought down his fist upon the handrail of the staircase:
'It was she; in her late husband's coat and hat!'

Somewhat relieved to find that there was no intruder in the case, yet
none the less surprised, the minister crept down the stairs, softly put
on his boots, overcoat, and hat, and tried the front door. It was
fastened as usual: he went to the back door, found this unlocked, and
emerged into the garden. The night was mild and moonless, and rain had
lately been falling, though for the present it had ceased. There was a
sudden dropping from the trees and bushes every now and then, as each
passing wind shook their boughs. Among these sounds Stockdale heard the
faint fall of feet upon the road outside, and he guessed from the step
that it was Lizzy's. He followed the sound, and, helped by the
circumstance of the wind blowing from the direction in which the
pedestrian moved, he got nearly close to her, and kept there, without
risk of being overheard. While he thus followed her up the street or
lane, as it might indifferently be called, there being more hedge than
houses on either side, a figure came forward to her from one of the
cottage doors. Lizzy stopped; the minister stepped upon the grass and
stopped also.

'Is that Mrs. Newberry?' said the man who had come out, whose voice
Stockdale recognized as that of one of the most devout members of his
congregation.

'It is,' said Lizzy.

'I be quite ready--I've been here this quarter-hour