locum tenens of
the forenoon, but it left a more salutary and peaceful impression. None
of the ideas were original, the illustrations were commonplace, and
what passed for argument was rather threadbare. The fundamental axiom
was there, but was not aggressively flaunted: it was rather implied
than expressed. But in spite of all this, the hearers, or most of them,
were the better of the discourse, for the simple loving kindness and
faith of the old man permeated the congregation as a gentle and
soothing influence.

It was noticed that Samuel withdrew quietly from the church just at the
close of the last hymn, and before the final prayer and blessing. When
the junior teacher assembled the girls a few minutes later, in the
dormitory, Martha Kawa was missing.

The Reverend Robley Wilson and Miss Blake lingered in the church for a
few minutes after the congregation had left, and strolled together
across the grass plot to the Mission House. At the door, Mr. Wilson
excused himself, and walked down through the shrubbery towards the
visitors's house--a little one-roomed building, set apart for guests.
He meant just to leave his Bible and hymnbook on the table, brush his
hair, and then rejoin Miss Blake and the others in the dining-room,
where supper awaited them. He softly whistled the tune of a hymn as he
went along the path, thinking how very inconvenient it was that he had
to return home on the following day. It had been agreed that the
engagement was to be announced that evening to the kind old missionary
and his wife. He also thought of the inevitable opposition to a short
engagement, as he knew how difficult it would be to find a suitable
successor to Miss Blake. He had just begun to compare the sermon he had
just been listening to with his own of the morning--much to the
disadvantage of the former, through which he could perceive the
fundamental axiom protruding like a cloven foot, when he suddenly
ceased thinking for ever, for a blow from the heavy knob of a strong
stick crushed his skull in on his brain like an egg-shell, and he sank,
a limp mass, to the ground.

Then Samuel Gozani, for it was his arm that had struck the blow, sprang
from the footpath into the thickest part of the shrubbery, and there
came into violent physical contact with Martha Kawa, who had been a
witness of his murderous deed.

They waited in the dining-room, expecting the arrival of the guest, and
wondering at his long absence. Suddenly a lo