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There was a moment of strained silence, then, as Barnabas sank back

on the rickety chair, Mr Chichester laughed softly, and stepped

into the room

"Salvation, was it, and a new life?" he inquired, "are you the one

to be saved, Ronald, or Smivvle here, or both?"

Ronald Barryht the floor, and his pale

cheek beca, vivid scarlet

"I couldn't help but overhear as I came upstairs," pursued

Mr Chichester pleasantly, "and devilish dark stairs they are--"

"Though excellent for eavesdropping, it appears!" added Barnabas

"What?" cried Barry on ame, Chichester?" But hereupon

Mr Smivvle started forward

"Now, my dear Barry," he re to spy on me,--no, by heaven!

neither you, nor Chichester, nor the d-devil himself--"

"Certainly not,

Barry it there,

"nobody wants to And, as for you, Chichester--couldn't come at a

better time--let me introduce our friend Mr Beverley--"

"Thank you, Smivvle, but we've met before," said Mr Chichester dryly,

"last time he posed as Rustic Virtue in homespun, to-day it seems he

is the Good Samaritan in a flowered waistcoat, very anxiously bent

on saving some one or other--conditionally, of course!"