Clench's housekeeper opened to him. She was staying on as caretaker, so she told him, until Mr. Clench's relatives decided what would be done about the sale. Nothing had been disturbed as yet, she was waiting instructions; and it was what the poor old gentleman had wished, that everything should be kept on just the same. He had spoken of it when he was wandering at the last, thinking he had a journey to go, but that he was coming back.

"Yes, sir, they are handsome rooms, both upstairs and down. A fine old house, just right for a family, but rather large and lonesome for one alone. The dining-room is on this side as you see, with a small breakfast-parlour behind, though it never was used for breakfasting, not in my time. May be you are the gentleman who is to succeed Mr. Clench, and who preached yesterday up at the church?"

Basil told her that he took the services only as a visitor, and that nothing was decided yet about the living: the last not quite the truth, for in his own mind the decision against taking it was already made.

"Most gentlemen admire the staircase, which is oak as you see, and real old. And here is the drawing-room, but not in order, as we put up the bed you see for Mr. Clench when he got feeble at the last, and it was here that he died. It was convenient, being next to the study. A fine room the study is, and looks handsome lined with bookcases. It was a lot of books Mr. Clench had, and he was that particular over them. We have put a fire in here to keep away the damp, as I know he would have wished."

She was opening the door as she spoke, and holding it for Basil to enter. Yes, there was a fire on the hearth, and in a chair drawn near it was seated an old man, a man in a black cassock and skull-cap, with sharp eyes peering over spectacles: the old man of the church, though the white surplice was no longer worn. And there was the same hostility in the silent gaze which met and held his own.

Basil drew back.

"Who is the old gentleman who is using the room?" he asked in a low voice of the housekeeper.

"No one is using the room, sir. There is nobody in the house but myself."

"Why there he is, just before you, sitting by the fire."

The woman looked round in a scared way, and then shut the door again.

"Are you meaning to put a fright upon me, sir?" she said as they stood together in the hall; she seemed both indignant and alarmed.

Basil disclaimed any such intention.

"I am perfectly serious. I would be the last to wish to frighten you. I saw him so plainly sitting there, that I thought you must see him too. An old man in a skull-cap."

The housekeeper wrung her hands.

"If I was to see him I could not stay here, no, not for double the wage. People in the village make a talk about the old parson walking, but I never heed such tales. I saw him die, and I saw him buried. It is altogether past belief."

Basil declined to visit the upper floors: what was the use? It should never be his house; upon that he had now unalterably determined. It remained only to break the decision to aunt Emmeline, and then to return to the mill-horse grind of the East London toil.

Some ten days later he received the following letter:—

"My dear Nephew,—I have had you much in mind since we parted, and yesterday our solicitor, Mr. Kempson, came down to see me. I wanted to consult him what I could best do in your interests about the vacancy at Stoke-St. Edith. He thinks it will be quite possible to arrange an exchange of this benefice now vacant for the right to present to another one likely to fall vacant before long, of the same, or nearly equal value.

"Of course I did not tell him why you had refused Stoke-St.