CHAPTER IX.
Directly after breakfast was over the next morning the Rector came in.
"I would not come in yesterday, Mark," he said.

"I knew that you would be best alone; and, indeed, I was myself so terribly upset by the news that I did not feel equal to it.

I need not say how deeply I and my wife sympathize with you.

Never did a kinder heart beat than your father's; never have I seen people so universally grieved as they are in the village.

I doubt whether a man went to work yesterday, and as for the women, had it been a father they had lost they could not be more affected." "Yes, he will be greatly missed," Mark said unsteadily; "and, between ourselves--but this must go no further--I have a suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, that the hand that dealt this blow is the same that caused the vacancy that brought you here." "Do you mean Arthur Bastow ?" Mr.Greg said in amazement.