traying his own or another's secrets--his
lips were about as likely to do _that_ as those of an effigy on a
tomb-stone.

Naples was a cover that the reverend investigator had not drawn; so he
was considerably startled by the following words in a letter from
thence, received that morning: "I meet a lady constantly in society
here, of whose history I am curious to know more. She is the wife of
Major Keene, the famous Indian _sabreur_; but has been separated from
him for several years. She never makes an allusion to his existence; it
was by the merest chance that I heard this, and also that her husband is
spending the winter at Dorade. Perhaps you can throw some light on the
cause of the 'separate maintenance?' People are not particular here, and
have no right to be; still, one would like to know. I fancy it can not
be her fault; she is perfectly gentle in her manner, but rather
cold--very beautiful too, in a placid, statuesque style." It is not
worth transcribing the writer's farther speculations. If a silent, but
ultra-fervent benediction can at all profit the person for whom it is
intended, very few people have been so well paid for epistolary labor,
as was, then, Mr. Fullarton's correspondent. The reason why has already
been explained.

Well, he had made his great _coup_ without carefully counting the
cost--that financial pleasure was still to come. He could not help
feeling that it had been rather _fiasco_. The man whom he had purposed
utterly to discomfit had throughout been provokingly at his ease; the
best that could be made of it was, a drawn battle. A disagreeable
consciousness crept over the chaplain of having made himself generally
obnoxious, without reaping any equivalent advantage or even
satisfaction. No one seemed to look kindly or admiringly at him since
the disclosure, except Mrs. Danvers; and, glutton as he was of such
dainties, the adulation of that exemplary but unattractive female began
rather to pall on his palate. He was clear-sighted enough to be aware
that Miss Tresilyan was probably offended with him beyond hope of
reconciliation, but this did not greatly trouble him. He had been
sensible for some time of the decay of his influence in that quarter.
Last of all rose on his mind, with unpleasant distinctness, Cecil's
warning, "If I were a man, I should not like to have Major Keene as my
enemy." He had thrown the lance over that enemy's frontier, and it was
now too late to talk of truce. A dread o