Father Benwell walked softly up and down the room, looking about

him with quietly-observant eye. A side table in a corner was
covered with letters, waiting Winterfield's return. Always ready

for information of any sort, he even looked at the addresses on
the letters.

The handwritings presented the customaryvariety of character.
All but three of the envelopes showed the London district

postmarks. Two of the other letters (addressed to Winterfield at
his club) bore foreign postmarks; and one, as the altered

direction showed, had been forward from Beaupark House to the
hotel.

This last letter especially attracted the priest's attention.
The address was apparently in a woman's handwriting. And it was

worthy of remark that she appeared to be the only person among
Winterfield's correspondents who was not acquainted with the

address of his hotel or of his club. Who could the person be? The
subtly inquiring intellect of Father Benwell amused itself by

speculating even on such a trifling problem as this. He little
thought that he had a personal interest in the letter. The

envelope contained Stella's warning to Winterfield to distrust no
less a person than Father Benwell himself!

It was nearly half-past five before quick footsteps were audible
outside. Winterfield entered the room.

"This is friendly indeed!" he said. "I expected to return to the
worst of all solitudes--solitude in a hotel. You will stay and

dine with me? That's right. You must have thought I was going to
settle in Paris. Do you know what has kept me so long? The most

delightful theater in the world--the Opera Comique. I am so fond
of the bygone school of music, Father Benwell--the flowing

graceful delicious melodies of the composers who followed Mozart.
One can only enjoy that music in Paris. Would you believe that I

waited a week to hear Nicolo's delightful Joconde for the second
time. I was almost the only young man in the stalls. All round me

were the old men who remembered the first performances of the
opera, beating time with their wrinkled hands to the tunes which

were associated with the happiest days of their lives. What's
that I hear? My dog! I was obliged to leave him here, and he

knows I have come back!"
He flew to the door and called down the stairs to have the dog

set free. The spaniel rushed into the room and leaped into his
master's outstretched arms. Winterfield returned his caresses,

and kisses him as tenderly as a woman might have kissed her pet.
"Dear old fellow! it's a shame to have left you--I won't do it

again. Father Benwell, have you many friends who would be as glad
to see you as _this_ friend? I haven't one. And there are fools

who talk of a dog as an inferior being to ourselves! _This_
creature's faithful love is mine, do what I may. I might be

disgraced in the estimation of every human creature I know, and
he would be as true to me as ever. And look at his physical

qualities. What an ugly thing, for instance--I won't say your
ear--I will say, my ear is; crumpled and wrinkled and naked. Look

at the beautiful silky covering of _his_ ear! What are our senses
of smelling and hearing compared to his? We are proud of our

reason. Could we find our way back, if they shut us up in a
basket, and took us to a strange place away from home? If we both

want to run downstairs in a hurry, which of us is securest
against breaking his neck--I on my poor two legs, or he on his

four? Who is the happy mortal who goes to bed without
unbuttoning, and gets up again without buttoning? Here he is, on

my lap, knowing I am talking about him, and too fond of me to say
to himself, 'What a fool my master is!' "

Father Benwell listened to this rhapsody--so characteristic of
the childishsimplicity of the man--with an inward sense of

impatience, which never once showed itself on the smiling surface
of his face.

He had decided not to mention the papers in his pocket until some
circumstance occurred which might appear to remind him naturally

that he had such things about him. If he showed any anxiety to
produce the envelope, he might expose himself to the suspicion of

having some knowledge of the contents. When would Winterfield
notice the side table, and open his letters?

The tick-tick of the clock on the mantel-piece steadily
registered the progress of time, and Winterfield's fantastic

attentions were still lavished on his dog.
Even Father Benwell's patience was sorely tried when the good

country gentleman proceeded to mention not only the spaniel's
name, but the occasion which had suggested it. "We call him

Traveler, and I will tell you why. When he was only a puppy he
strayed into the garden at Beaupark, so weary and footsore that

we concluded he had come to us from a great distance. We
advertised him, but he was never claimed--and here he is! If you

don't object, we will give Traveler a treat to-day. He shall have
dinner with us."

Perfectly understanding those last words, the dog jumped off his
master's lap, and actually forwarded the views of Father Benwell

in less than a minute more. Scampering round and round the room,
as an appropriate expression of happiness, he came into collision

with the side table and directed Winterfield's attention to the
letters by scattering them on the floor.

Father Benwell rose politely, to assist in picking up the
prostrate correspondence. But Traveler was beforehand with him.

Warning the priest, with a low growl, not to interfere with
another person's business, the dog picked up the letters in his

mouth, and carried them by installments to his master's feet.
Even then, the exasperating Winterfield went no further than

patting Traveler. Father Benwell's endurance reached its limits.
"Pray don't stand on ceremony with me," he said. "I will look at

the newspaper while you read your letters."
Winterfield carelessly gathered the letters together, tossed them

on the dining table at his side, and took the uppermost one of
the little heap.

Fate was certainly against the priest on that evening. The first
letter that Winterfield opened led him off to another subject of

conversation before he had read it to the end. Father Benwell's
hand, already in his coat pocket, appeared again--empty.

"Here's a proposal to me to go into Parliament," said the Squire.
"What do you think of representative institutions, Father

Benwell? To my mind, representative institutions are on their
last legs. Honorable Members vote away more of our money every

year. They have no alternative between suspending liberty of
speech, or sitting helpless while half a dozen impudent idiots

stop the progress of legislation from motives of the meanest
kind. And they are not even sensitive enough to the national

honor to pass a social law among themselves which makes it as
disgraceful in a gentleman to buy a seat by bribery as to cheat

at cards. I declare I think the card-sharper the least degraded
person of the two. _He_ doesn't encourage his inferiors to be

false to a public trust. In short, my dear sir, everything wears
out in this world--and why should the House of Commons be an

exception to the rule?"
He picked up the next letter from the heap. As he looked at the

address, his face changed. The smile left his lips, the gayety
died out of his eyes. Traveler, entreating for more notice with

impatient forepaws applied to his master's knees, saw the
alteration, and dropped into a respectfully recumbent position.

Father Benwell glanced sidelong off the columns of the newspaper,
and waited for events with all the discretion, and none of the

good faith, of the dog.
"Forwarded from Beaupark," Winterfield said to himself. He opened

the letter--read it carefully to the end--thought over it--and
read it again.

"Father Benwell!" he said suddenly.
The priest put down the newspaper. For a few moments more nothing