As Malling came in he looked up and nodded.

“Putting down all about Mrs. Groeber,” he observed.

“Anything new or interesting?” asked Malling.

“Just the usual manifestations, done in full light, though.”

He laid aside his pen, while Malling sat down.

“A letter from Flammarion this morning,” he said.  “But all about Halley’s comet, of course.  What is it?”

Now the professor’s “What is it?” was not general, but particular, and was at once understood to be so by Malling.  It did not mean “Why have you come?” but “Why are you obsessed at this moment, and by what?”

“Let’s have the mystery,” he added, leaning his elbows on his just dried manuscript, and resting his sharp little chin on his doubled fists.

Yet Malling had hinted at no mystery, and had come without saying he was coming.

“You know a clergyman called Marcus Harding?” said Malling.

“Of St. Joseph’s.  To be sure, I do.”

“Do you know also his senior curate, Henry Chichester?”

“No.”

“Have you heard of him?”

“Oh dear, yes.  And I fancy I’ve seen him at a distance.”

“You heard of him from Harding, I suppose.”

“Exactly, and Harding’s wife.”

“Oh, from Lady Sophia!”

“Who hates him.”

“Since when?” said Malling, emphatically.

“I couldn’t say.  But I was only aware of the fact about a month ago.”

“Have you any reason to suppose that Harding has been making any experiments?”

“In church music, biblical criticism, or what?”

“Say in psychical research?”

“No.”

“Or that Chichester has?”

“No.”

“Hasn’t Harding ever talked to you on the subject?”

“He has tried to,” said the professor, rather grimly.

“And you didn’t encourage him?”

“When do I encourage clergymen to talk about psychical research?”

Malling could not help smiling.

“I have some reason—­at least I believe so—­to suppose that Harding and his curate Chichester have been making some experiments in directions not entirely unknown to us,” he observed.  “And what is more”—­he paused—­“what is more,” he continued, “I am inclined to think that those experiments may have been crowned with a success they little understand.”

Down went the professor’s fists, his head was poked forward in Malling’s direction, and his small eyes glittered almost like those of a glutton who sees a feast spread before him.

“The experiments of two clergymen in psychical research crowned with success!” he barked out.

“If so, I shall see what I can do in the pulpit—­the Abbey pulpit!”

He got up, and walking slightly sidewise, with his hands hanging, and his fingers opening and shutting, went over to a chair close to Malling’s.

“Get on!” he said.