The quiet of Sunday was over, and Helstonleigh awoke on the Monday morning to the bustle of every-day life. Mr. Jenkins awoke, with others, and got up—not Jenkins the old bedesman, but his son Joseph, who had the grey mare for his wife. It was Mr. Jenkins’s intention to resume his occupation that day, with Mr. Hurst’s and Mrs. Jenkins’s permission: the former he might have defied; the latter he dared not. However, he was on the safe side, for both had accorded it.

Mrs. Jenkins was making breakfast in the small parlour behind her hosiery shop, when her husband appeared. He looked all the worse for his accident. Poor Joe was one whom a little illness told upon. Thin, pale, and lantern-jawed at the best of times—indeed he was not infrequently honoured with the nickname of “scare-crow”—he now looked thinner and paler than ever. His tall, shadowy form seemed bent with the weakness induced by lying a few days in bed; while his hair had been cut off in three places at the top of his head, to give way to as many patches of white plaster.

“A nice figure you’ll cut in the office, to-day, with those ornaments on your crown!” was Mrs. Jenkins’s salutation.

“I am thinking to fold this broadly upon my head, and tie it under my chin,” said he, meekly, holding out a square, black silk handkerchief which he had brought down in his hand.

“That would not hide the patch upon your forehead, stupid!” responded Mrs. Jenkins. “I believe you must have bumped upon the edge of every stair in the organ-loft, as you came down, to get so many wounds!” she continued crossly. “If you ever do such a senseless trick again, you shan’t stir abroad without me or the maid at your back, to take care of you; I promise you that!”

“I have combed my hair over the place on my forehead!” civilly replied Mr. Jenkins. “I don’t think it shows much.”

“And made yourself look like an owl! I thought it was nothing less than a stuffed owl coming in. Why can’t you wear your hat? That would hide your crown and your forehead too.”

“I did think of that; and I dare say Mr. Galloway would allow me to do it, and overlook the disrespect in consideration of the circumstances,” answered Jenkins. “But then, I thought again, suppose the dean should chance to come into the office to-day?—or any of the canons? There’s no telling but they may. I could not keep my hat on in their presence; and I should not like to take it off, and expose the plasters.”

“You’d frighten them away, if you did,” said Mrs. Jenkins, dashing some water into the teapot.

“Therefore,” he added, when she had finished speaking, “I think it will be better to put on this handkerchief. People do wear them, when suffering from neuralgia, or from toothache.”

“Law! wear it, if you like! what a fuss you make about nothing! If you chose to go with your head wrapped up in a blanket, nobody would look at you.”

“Very true,” meekly coughed Mr. Jenkins.

“What are you doing?” irascibly demanded Mrs. Jenkins, perceiving that of two slices of bacon which she had put upon his plate, one had been surreptitiously conveyed back to the dish.

“I am not hungry this morning. I cannot eat it.”

“I say you shall eat it. What next? Do you think you are going to starve yourself?”

“My appetite will come back to me in a morning or two,” he deprecatingly observed.

“It is back quite enough for that bacon,” was the answer. “Come! I’ll have it eaten.”

She ruled him in everything as she would a child; and, appetite or no appetite, Mr. Jenkins had to obey. Then he prepared for his departure. The black silk square was tied on, so as to cover the damages; the hat was well drawn over the brows, and Mr. Jenkins started. When Mr. Galloway entered his office that morning, which he did earlier than usual, there sat Mr. Jenkins in his usual place, copying a lease.

He looked glad to see his old clerk. It is pleasant to welcome a familiar face after an absence. “Are you sure you are equal to work, Jenkins?”

“Quite so, sir, thank you. I had a little fever at first, and Mr. Hurst was afraid of that; but it has quite subsided. Beyond being a trifle sore on the head, and stiff at the elbows and one hip, I am quite myself again.”

“I was sorry to hear of the accident, Jenkins,” Mr. Galloway resumed.

“I was as vexed at it as I could be, sir. When I first came to myself, I hardly knew what damage was done; and the uncertainty of getting to business, perhaps for weeks, did worry me much. I don’t deny, too, that I have been in a little pain. But oh, sir! it was worth happening! it was indeed; only to experience the kindness and good fellowship that have been shown me. I am sure half the town has been to see me, or to ask after me.”

“I hear you have had your share of visitors.”

“The bishop himself came,” said poor Jenkins, tears of gratitude rising to his eyes in the intensity of his emotion. “He did, indeed, sir. He came on the Friday, and groped his way up our dark stairs (for very dark they are when Mr. Harper’s sitting-room door is shut), and sat down by my bedside, and chatted, just as plainly and familiarly as if he had been no better than one of my own acquaintances. Mr. Arthur Channing found him there when he came with your kind message, sir.”

“So I heard,” said Mr. Galloway. “You and the bishop were both in the same boat. I cannot, for my part, get at the mystery of that locking-up business.”

“The bishop as good as said so, sir—that we had both been in it. I was trying to express my acknowledgments to his lordship for his condescension, apologizing for my plain bedroom, and the dark stairs, and all that, and saying, as well as I knew how, that the like of me was not worthy of a visit from him, when he laughed, in his affable way, and said, ‘We were both caught in the same trap, Jenkins. Had I been the one to receive personal injury, I make no doubt that you would have come the next day to inquire after me.’ What a great thing it is, to be blessed with a benevolent heart, like the Bishop of Helstonleigh’s!”

Arthur Channing came in and interrupted the conversation. He was settling to his occupation, when Mr. Galloway drew his attention; in an abrupt and angry manner, as it struck Arthur.

“Channing, you told me, yesterday, that you posted that letter for Ventnor on Friday.”

“So I did, sir.”

“It has been robbed.”

“Robbed!” returned Arthur, in surprise, scarcely realizing immediately the meaning of the word.

“You know that it contained money—a twenty-pound note. You saw me put it in.”

“Yes—I—know—that,” hesitated Arthur.

“What are you stammering at?”

In good truth, Arthur could not have told, except that he hesitated in surprise. He had cast his thoughts into the past, and was lost in them.

“The fact is, you did not post the letters yourself,” resumed Mr. Galloway. “You gave them to somebody else to post, in a fit of idleness, and the result is, that the letter was rifled, and I have lost twenty pounds.”

“Sir, I assure you, that I did post them myself,” replied Arthur, with firmness. “I went straight from this door to the post-office. In coming back, I called on Jenkins”—turning to him—“as you bade me, and afterwards I returned here. I mentioned to you, then, sir, that the bishop was with Jenkins.”

Mr. Jenkins glanced up from his desk, a streak of colour illumining his thin cheek, half hidden by the black handkerchief. “I was just saying, sir, to Mr. Galloway, that you found his lordship at my bedside,” he said to Arthur.

“Has the note been taken out of the letter, sir?” demanded Arthur. “Did the letter reach its destination without it?”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Galloway, in answer to both questions. “I had a few lines from Mr. Robert Galloway yesterday morning, stating that the letter had arrived, but no bank-note was enclosed in it. Now, where is the note?”

“Where can it be?” reiterated Arthur. “The letter must have been opened on the road. I declare to you, sir, that I put it myself into the post-office.&r............