"And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts."' Now, it so happened that some of Mr.Prywell's most private and not at all professional papers--papers evidently, and on the face of them, connected with the state of the spy's own soul--came into my hands as good lot would have it just the other night.

The moth-eaten chest was full of his old papers, but the pieces that took my heart most were, as it looked to me, actually gnashed through with his remorseful teeth, and soaked and sodden past recognition with his sweat and his tears and his agonising hands.

But after some late hours over those remnants I managed to make some sense to myself out of them.

There are some parts of the parchments that pass me; but, if only to show you that this arch-spy's so vigilant jealousy was not all directed against other people's bad hearts and bad habits, I shall copy some lines out of the old box.

'Have I penitence ?' he begins without any preface.