ttle of the man.
We passed each other from time to time in the street of Porthlooe, and
he accosted me with a politeness to which, though distrusting him, I
felt bound to respond. But he never offered conversation, and our next
interview was wholly of my seeking.

One evening towards the close of his second year at Porthlooe, and about
the date of his purchase of the _Providence_ schooner, I happened to be
walking homewards from a visit to a sick parishioner, when at Cove
Bottom, by the miller's footbridge, I passed two figures--a man and a
woman standing there and conversing in the dusk. I could not help
recognising them; and halfway up the hill I came to a sudden resolution
and turned back.

"Mr. Laquedem," said I, approaching them, "I put it to you, as a man of
education and decent feeling, is this quite honourable?"

"I believe, sir," he answered courteously enough, "I can convince you
that it is. But clearly this is neither the time nor the place."

"You must excuse me," I went on, "but I have known Julia since she was a
child."

To this he made an extraordinary answer. "No longer?" he asked; and
added, with a change of tone, "Had you not forbidden me the vicarage,
sir, I might have something to say to you."

"If it concern the girl's spiritual welfare--or yours--I shall be happy
to hear it."

"In that case," said he, "I will do myself the pleasure of calling upon
you--shall we say to-morrow evening?"

He was as good as his word. At nine o'clock next evening--about the
hour of his former visit--Frances ushered him into my parlour.
The similarity of circumstance may have suggested to me to draw the
comparison; at any rate I observed then for the first time that rapid
ageing of his features which afterwards became a matter of common
remark. The face was no longer that of the young man who had entered my
parlour two years before; already some streaks of grey showed in his
black locks, and he seemed even to move wearily.

"I fear you are unwell," said I, offering a chair.

"I have reason to believe," he answered, "that I am dying." And then,
as I uttered some expression of dismay and concern, he cut me short.
"Oh, there will be no hurry about it! I mean, perhaps, no more than that
all men carry about with them the seeds of their mortality--so why not
I? But I came to talk of Julia Constantine, not of myself."

"You may guess, Mr. Laquedem, that as her vicar, and having known her
and her affliction