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had tapped with his stick upon the floor and, with a severe expression on his face, had appeared not to hear the invitation. He, I think, whether because of his intimacy with the dead man or because of his advancing years, had been more than any of us affected by the Rector's death. Now he would often begin, in a respectful voice, to tell stories of the Rector's schooldays; but frequently he broke off these stories in the middle or allowed them to ramble to an inconclusive end, pretending a lapse of memory, although it was clear that his mind moved far more easily among the events of his boyhood than in the present, and we all knew that it was strong emotion rather than forgetfulness that caused him on these occasions to stumble over his words. I saw much of him in the days before the funeral, and I usually saw him alone, for his sister was, from early in the morning until late at night, in the company of the Rector's wife; the intimacy between the two ladies was so great that I could not but feel myself something of an intruder in their company. Moreover, at this time the Rector's wife, though her manner was as affectionate as ever, seemed sometimes, I thought, anxious to avoid me. She was, I fancied, embarrassed by the fact that I shared with her the knowledge of her own infidelity and of the Rector's crime; and she may have feared, too, that I would seize the first opportunity to try to extract from her further information, if she possessed it, about my own birth. This, indeed, I was determined some time to do; but I had decided to wait until after the funeral, although I had hoped, perhaps, that she might herself voluntarily have chosen to enlighten me. Her reluctance to speak on any subject even remotely connected with the confession which we had both heard in the study was, I thought, the result of what was evidently a sincere affection for the dead man. And, as for the story of my own birth, it was very likely that she knew nothing about it. It would have seemed indecent, when I remembered the body on the bed upstairs and its pervasive influence, to have pressed her at this time with questions which she might have no wish to answer. Had the Rector been not only her husband but my father, we might perhaps have more demonstratively shared the grief which we both felt. As it was, her main consolation came from the Squire's sister and I was, not by any means against my will, left very much to my own devices. Between them the two ladies made the necessary arrangements with the undertaker, and left me little or nothing to do, so that I spent much of my time at the Manor. I was on the point of going there, I remember, on the day before the funeral, and had risen from the breakfast-table and said good-bye to the Rector's wife when the Squire's sister entered the dining-room, carrying with her our letters which she had taken in the road outside from the postman. I noticed that there seemed to be a certain nervousness in her manner as she handed across the table a large envelope marked with the official stamp of the Air Ministry. The Rector's wife held the envelope out in front of her, as though deliberating whether or not she should open it, and looked inquiringly at the Squire's sister before she laid it face downwards on the table and slit the top of it with a paper-knife. The Squire's sister and I watched as though some conjuring trick were being performed. Indeed, it struck me at the time that the interest which we were showing was excessive. The Rector's wife read and, as she read, I thought that her face showed an almost unnatural absence of expression. Then, with a smile, she passed the letter across the table to us and we read it together. It was a notice from the Ministry signed by the Air Vice-Marshal. Regret for the accident which had taken place was expressed in conventional terms. Finally it was suggested that, as a mark of respect for the dead man, the Vice-Marshal should himself attend the funeral. He would