“Well, my child,”—­he was very fatherly and bland, was the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh—­“and what may you want with me?”

“My Mistress sent me, sir.  I am Mrs. Holywell’s maid.”

“Indeed!” said Mr. Rashleigh, vividly interested at once; “and how is Mrs. Holywell?”

“Very poorly, sir.  She thinks she’s dying herself.  She wants to make her will to-night; that’s why she sent for you.”

Mr. Rashleigh rose with very unwonted alacrity.

She was a distant relative of his, this dying Mrs. Holywell; ridiculously rich for a childless widow, and with no nearer heir than the reverend pastor of St. Pancras’ Church.

“I will accompany you at once, my dear!  Poor Mrs. Holywell!  But it is the fate of all flesh!  How did you come, pray?  It rains, does it not?”

A fierce gust of wind rattled the double windows, and frantically beat the rain against them by way of answer.

“I came in a carriage, sir.  It is at the door now.”

“That is well.  I will not detain you an instant.  Ah! poor Mrs. Holywell!”

The parson’s hat and overcoat hung in the room.  In a moment they were on; in another he was following the very respectable young woman down-stairs; in a third he was scrambling after her into the carriage; in a fourth they were rattling wildly over the wet, stony streets; in a fifth the reverend gentleman was grasped in a vise-like grip, and a voice close to his ear—­a man’s voice—­hissed: 

“Speak one word, make the least outcry, and you are a dead man!”

The interior of the carriage was in utter darkness.

The Reverend Mr. Rashleigh gave one panting gasp, and fell back in his seat.  High living and long indolence had made him a complete craven.  Life was inestimably precious to the portly pastor of St. Pancras’.  After that one choking gasp, he sat quivering all over, like calves’-foot jelly.

“Bandage his eyes, Sarah, while I tie his hands,” said the man’s voice.  “My dear sir, don’t shake so; it is almost impossible to do anything with you in this hysterical state.  Now, bind his mouth, Sarah.  There!  I think that will do.”

Bound hands, and eyes, and mouth, half suffocated, wholly blinded, the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh was a pitiable object at that instant.  But there was no one to pity him, no one to see him, no one to help him.

The carriage whirled on, and on, and on at dizzy speed, the wind sighing by in long, lamentable gales, the rain dashing clamorously against the closed glass.

Paralyzed with intense terror, Mr. Rashleigh sat trembling to that extent that he threatened to topple off his seat.