It was all affectation, and addressed strictly to himself, who saw through it all; but still he practised it.

'If these infernal losses had not come to spoil my stomach.

I should not have remembered them, much less let them haunt me this way, like a cursed file of ghosts.

I'll try gentian to-morrow.' Everything and everyone was poking at the one point of his secret fears.

Dr.Walsingham preached a sermon upon the text, 'remember the days of darkness for they are many.' It went over the tremendous themes of death and judgment in the rector's own queer, solemn, measured way, and all the day after rang in Sturk's ear as the drums and fifes in the muffled peal of the Dead March used to do long ago, before his ear grew familiar with its thrilling roll.