People will tell such-like stories as you know, fancies running away with them; and there are few that heed."

The wheezy harmonium struck up a voluntary, and Basil went on into the church. Approaching the chancel, he saw that both reading-desks were vacant, and he fully purposed to take possession of the left hand one, which was his own. But he found himself powerless to carry intention into action. It was as if he was firmly seized by the shoulders, and pushed into the right-hand seat by a force he could not resist, or was unable to do so without a struggle, which would have been unseemly in the face of the congregation. What Aldridge was thinking in his place at the west end, Basil could only conjecture, but probably his guess only erred by falling short of the fact.

For the first part of the service the left-hand reading-desk remained empty, but on returning to his seat after the second Lesson, he found that it was filled by the same appearance as before, the old man in his vestments and skull-cap, peering at him over spectacles with unfriendly and defiant eyes. It was almost a relief when the presence externalised and became visible, instead of being merely felt in every fibre of his bodily frame.

What was to happen when sermon time arrived? The figure opposite made no movement when Basil was about to leave the desk, and yet in a moment, instantaneous as a flash of light, there it stood at the bottom of the pulpit stairs, barring his way, and facing him with a malignant smile.

Basil did not contest the passage. He delivered this second address from the chancel step, and when he turned at the conclusion, the figure had disappeared.

"Did you see him again, sir?" demanded Aldridge, who was waiting in the vestry, and Basil briefly assented: he was in no humour to discuss the marvel a second time, and Aldridge had no fresh explanation to advance.

There was nothing for it now but to be candid with aunt Emmeline, and how she would take the communication he dreaded to think: women were always a mass of nerves, especially invalid women. But his aunt was more reasonable than he had ventured to expect, and was ready to respond to his wish that they should keep the matter to themselves.

"I do not want to be labelled as a man with a supernatural extra sense, or to give Stoke-St. Edith a bad name. I am afraid the matter may to some extent have gone abroad through Aldridge, but I'll try to see him to-morrow, and give him an injunction not to talk."

"Yes, my dear," the aunt acquiesced. "It was wonderful, of course, that you should see, and be able to describe a perfect stranger. But it may never happen again, to you or to anybody else. And Basil, I hope, I do trust, that this will not set you against accepting the Living. We know it is likely—I suppose it is likely—that the spirits of the dead are about us always: you know it speaks in the Bible of the great cloud of witnesses. So surely we need not take it as extraordinary if we see one of them now and then. And Mr. Clench was a good man. He would do nobody any harm."

His aunt might have thought differently, Basil reflected, had she seen the malignant eyes of the apparition which barred his way.

"If it went on happening, I could not stay here. Better for someone to come who would not see."

"I don't want you to decide in a hurry; take a week or two to think it over. I will not have you give me a definite answer to-night. Things may look different on reflection. It is such a chance for you, my dear; and it would be so happy for me to know you were here looking after the people, when I am obliged to be so much away. And there is such an excellent rectory-house, quite a country gentleman's place, the best rectory in the county, so they say, and in very good repair. You need not open the whole of it, if you thought it too large for you alone. It could be made so nice. I was not going to tell you just at once, but I have five hundred pounds put aside to help you with the furnishing!"

What was he to say to all this kindness—how was he to repulse the soft entreating hands held out to him full of gifts? It would make no difference, of that he could be certain; but yes, if she wished he would take a longer time to think the matter over, and he would see the Rectory on the following morning, as he need not take train for London till the afternoon. And then he endeavoured to tell her how deeply he felt her kindness, and what a disappointment it would be to him too, so to put the great chance of his life away.

That ended the Sunday evening, and after Monday's breakfast he went across to the Rectory, in fulfilment of the promise given over night.

The red-brick Georgian mansion, with its stone pediments and cornice, and formal garden-court, was surely an attractive dwelling, cheerful to look at in the Spring sunshine, a home of which any young divine might well be proud. Probably Parson Clench had some such thoughts of it, when he came into possession at Stoke-St. Edith two-and-sixty years before. But he would not have had the same shrinking from the habitation in which his predecessor lived and died, that now disquieted Basil Deane.

Mr.