As good luck would have it, he met Budda half-way up the village, and at once took him into his confidence.

Budda put on an expression of great profundity.

"I think we ought to break into the house," William said hurriedly.

This proposition Budda negatived at once. To do what anyone else advised would show lack of originality on the part of the force. If William had suggested that they ask d.i.c.k Lowry the smith to pick the lock, Budda would have gone at once and battered the door down. Initiative and originality are the chief characteristics of the men in blue.

"Let me see," said Budda, looking wise and stroking his chin with great tenderness, "Amos Bice the auctioneer is the landlord, if I'm not greatly mistook."

"Then possibly he knows something?" William said anxiously.

"Possibly he do," Budda answered oracularly. "I will walk on and see him."

"I will walk along with you," William replied. "I confess I'm getting a bit curious. Everybody knows, of course, that they're terribly hard up, though I must say they've paid cash down for everything got at my store."

"Been disposing of their furniture, I hear," Budda said shortly.

"So it is reported," William replied. "That implies sore straits, and they are not the sort of people, by all accounts, to ask for help."

"Would die sooner," Budda replied laconically.

"Then perhaps they're dead," William said, with a little gasp. "It must be terrible hard for people who have known better days."

Amos Bice looked up with a start when Budda and William Menire entered his small office.

"I have come to inquire," Budda began, quite ignoring his companion, "if you know anything about--well, about what has become of the Penlogans?"

"Well, I do--of course," he said, slowly and reflectively; though why he should have added "of course" was not quite clear.

William began to breathe a little more freely. Budda looked disappointed. Budda revelled in mysteries, and when a mystery was cleared up all the interest was taken out of it.

"Then you know where they are?" Budda questioned shortly.

"I know where the mother is--I am not so sure of the daughter. But naturally it is not a matter that I care to talk about, particularly as they did not wish their doings to be the subject of common gossip."

"May I ask why you do not care to talk about them?" Budda questioned severely.

"Well, it's this way. I'm the owner of the cottage, as perhaps you know.

The rent is paid quarterly in advance. They paid their first quarter at Michaelmas. The next was due, of course, at Christmas. Well, you see, I found they were getting rid of their furniture rapidly, and in my own interests I had naturally to put a stop to it. Well, this brought things to a head. You see, the boy is in prison awaiting his trial, the mother is ailing, and the girl has found no way yet of earning her living, or hadn't a week ago. So, being brought to a full stop, they had to face the question and submit to the inevitable. I took all the furniture at a valuation--in fact, for a good deal more than it was worth--and after subtracting the rent, handed them over the balance. Mr. Thomas got an order for the old lady to go into the workhouse, and the girl, as I understand, is going to try to get a place in domestic service."

William Menire almost groaned. The idea of this sweet, gentle, ladylike girl being an ordinary domestic drudge seemed almost an outrage.

"And how long ago is all this?" Budda asked severely.

"Oh, just the day before yesterday. No, let me see. It was the day before that."

"And you have said nothing about it?"

"It was no business of mine to gossip over other people's affairs."

"They seem to have been very brave people," William remarked timidly.

"What some people would call proud," the auctioneer replied. "Not that I object. I like to see people showing a little proper pride. Some people would have boasted that they had heaps of money coming to them, and would have gone into debt everywhere. The Penlogans wouldn't buy a thing they couldn't pay for."

"It's what I call a great come down for them," Budda remarked sententiously; and then the two men took their departure, Budda to spread the news of the Penlogans' last descent in the social scale, and William to meditate more or less sadly on the chances of human life.

Before the church clock pointed to the hour of noon all St. Goram was agog with the news, and for the rest of the day little else was talked about. People were very sorry, of course--at any rate, they said they were; they paid lip service to the G.o.d of convention. It was a great come down for people who had occupied a good position, but the ways of Providence were very mysterious, and their duty was to be very grateful that no such calamity had overtaken them.

CHAPTER XVIII

A CONFESSION

The vicar was in the throes of a new sermon when the news reached him.

He had been at work on the sermon all the day, for its delivery was to be a great effort. Hence, it was long after dark before the tidings filtered through to his study.

Mr. Seccombe laid down his pen, and looked thoughtful. The news sent his thoughts running along an entirely new track. The thread of his sermon was cut clean through, and every effort he made to pick up the ends and splice them proved a dismal failure. From the triumphs of grace his thoughts drifted away to the mysteries of Providence.

He pulled himself up with a jerk at length. How much had G.o.d to do, after all, with what men called Providence? Was it the purpose of G.o.d that his boy Julian should grow into a fighter? Was it part of the same purpose that he should be killed in a distant land by an Arab's lance; that out of that should grow the commercial ruin of one of the saintliest men in the parish; and that his wife, in the closing years of her life, should be driven into the cold shadow of the workhouse?

John Seccombe got up from his chair and began to pace up and down the study.

He was interrupted in his meditations by a feeble knock on his study door.

"Come in," he said, pausing in his walk; and he waited a little impatiently for the door to open.

"A young man wants to see you, sir," the housemaid said, opening the door just wide enough to show her face.

"Who is he?"

"I don't know, sir. He did not give any name."

"Some shy young man who wants to get married, I expect," was the thought that pa.s.sed through Mr. Seccombe's mind.

"Show him in," he said, after a pause. And a moment or two later a pale-faced young man came shyly and hesitatingly into the room. He carried a cloth cap in his hand, and was dressed in a badly fitting suit of tweed.

Mr. Seccombe looked at him for a moment inquiringly. He thought he knew, by sight, nearly everybody in the parish, but he was not sure that he had seen this young man before.

"Will you take a seat?" he said, anxious to put the young man at his ease; for he was still convinced that this was a timid bachelor, who wanted to make arrangements for getting married.

"I would prefer to stand, if you don't mind," he answered, toying nervously with his cap.

"As you will," the vicar said, with a smile. "I presume you are about to take to yourself a wife?"

"Me? Oh dear, no. I've something else to think of."