During the time that It was lying in the unused second-floor room awaiting its last dismal journey to Kensal Green, Martin Gurwood kept the story which had been told him locked in his own breast. Once or twice he saw Doctor Haughton, who had managed to set aside the impending inquest, and to him Martin spoke, hoping that either he or Mr. Broadbent might suggest the advisability of their communicating with the tenant of the cottage at Hendon, and letting her know what had occurred. But on this subject the astute physician was singularly reserved; and whenever there was any approach to it he invariably turned the current of the conversation. It was a shy subject, he thought, and one in which grave men in his position should not be mixed up. They were men of the world, and knew that such things were; but both for professional and private reasons it was best to ignore them as far as possible.  
So Martin Gurwood, left entirely to his own resources, almost gave himself up to despair. He felt that it would be impossible to conceal the truth from Mrs. Calverley much longer, but he knew that before mentioning it to her, he ought to possess himself of the details of the story, and these he could not learn without a personal visit to Hendon. Then, too, it was more than probable that this young woman, the dead man's mistress, was even yet ignorant of his fate, and out of mere Christian charity she ought to be made acquainted with it. Martin Gurwood did not know what to do. His worldly knowledge was small; such of it as he possessed had been acquired at Oxford, and immediately after leaving the university, and it had grown dull and rusty in his subsequent curacies and in the Lullington a vicarage. If he had only a friend, a clear-headed, far-seeing man of experience, to whom he could intrust the secret, and on whose judgment he could rely! Suddenly a bright thought occurred to him--Humphrey Statham--there was the very man. Sound, single-hearted, and worldly-wise. Martin had known him off and on for many years, and not merely in his own experience of him, which was small, had found in him all the qualities he had named, but had heard him accredited with them by others whose relations with Statham had been more intimate. He would go down into the City the very next day, and hunt him out. And Martin Gurwood went to bed that night with a sense of relief at his heart.
 
The month on board the Scilly pilot-boat had done Humphrey Statham an immense deal of good. Mr. Collins had carefully avoided troubling his master with any letters or papers; though even if they had been forwarded, it is doubtful whether they would have reached their destination, as the season had been very stormy, and the pilot's services in constant requisition. Mr. Statham's spirits rose with the wind and the storm. Knowing the sea-going qualities of the boat beneath him, he was never so happy as when knocking about in heavy gales and foam-crested rollers. He had had a remarkably happy holiday, and had come back with renewed health and fresh vigour for business.
 
On the second morning after his return he was seated at his desk looking over some special papers which the vigilant Collins had placed before him, when that discreet functionary presented himself at the door.
 
'A gentleman to see you, sir,' he said; 'says his business is pressing. Here is his card.'
 
Mr. Statham took up the card, and glanced at it. 'The Reverend Martin Gurwood,' he cried; 'show him in at once. Why did you hesitate?'
 
'Beg your pardon, Mr. Statham, but these matters,' pointing to the papers on which Humphrey had been engaged, are important. Been bottled-up for a fortnight, and won't keep any longer. Norland and Company, owners of the brig Samson, found derelict off Cuxhaven, are coming to see you at two; and Captain Thompson, of the barque Susquehanna, run into the fog of the ninth instant off Dungeness, has been here three times, and gets more and more impatient each visit.'
 
'Captain Thompson's patience must be yet farther tried, I am afraid, Collins; and Messrs. Norland must wait my leisure,' said Humphrey Statham. 'Show Mr. Gurwood in at once, and don't let me be disturbed while he is with me.'
 
Mr. Collins 'bowed, with a deprecatory shrug of the shoulders, and retired, speedily returning and ushering the visitor into his master's presence.
 
'My dear Gurwood,' cried Humphrey, as soon as they were alone, 'this is an unexpected pleasure! What an age it is since I have seen you! I am so glad I am in town; I only returned the day before yesterday.'
 
'Your trip, whatever it has been, seems to have done you good,' said Martin. 'How strong and well you are looking!'
 
'I have been in a pilot-boat for the last three weeks--you know my old lunes--and had all the London dust blown out of me by strong gales and washed off me by running seas. I wish I could return the compliment, my dear fellow,' added Statham; 'but I'm sorry to see you doing no credit to Lullington air. You look as pallid and as sodden as any Londoner, Gurwood. What's the matter with you, man?'
 
'I have had a good deal of mental worry within the last few days, and I suppose I am showing its effects,' said Martin. 'It is this which has brought me to see you, to ask for any advice and assistance you can give me.'
 
'Sorry for the cause, but delighted to be of any use in my power,' said Statham. 'Is it in my line of business? Any of your stepfather's argosies run down and wrecked on their homeward voyage? By the way, a thousand pardons! What an idiot I am! I now remember to have seen in the Times a paragraph announcing Mr. Calverley's sudden death.'
 
'It is in connection with that event that I have come to you. You are a man of the world, I know, and a thorough good fellow into the bargain, while in all matters requiring tact and decision I am lamentably deficient.'
 
'Merely the manner of bringing up, my good friend,' said Humphrey Statham. 'I am practical and hard-headed: you are theoretical and large-hearted. What the wine-merchants call a 'blending' of the qualities of both of us would make, I suppose, the right sort of fellow. Now, then, what has gone wrong? Mr. Calverley has died intestate, I suppose, or there is some hitch about the disposition of his property.'
 
'No, so far all is right. The will, made about two years ago, is clear, concise, and properly attested. I am joined in the executorship with Mrs. Calverley, and so far all is plain sailing. Besides, I have been mixed up with so many of my parishioners in such matters that I should scarcely have needed advice. What I have come about is a much more serious affair.'
 
'Out with it, then, man, and don't have any farther hesitation. You won't be able to astonish me. All sorts of wonderful things have been told me by people sitting in that chair. The last person who occupied it before I went away was a detective officer, and your story cannot be more strange than his, or more pathetically interesting--to me at least.' But the last words were almost inaudible.
 
'You must let me say what I have to say in my own way, then,' said Martin Gurwood, 'and try and follow me as best you can. It was given out that Mr. Calverley died in a railway carriage. This was not the case. He died in a fit on the high road to Hendon, and was found there by a London physician who knew him, and who happened to be passing in his carriage.'
 
'Hendon?' repeated Humphrey Statham. 'What have I heard about Hendon lately?'
 
'It is a place which has a good deal to do with the story I am about to relate,' said Martin, 'as you will judge when I tell you that the late Mr. Calverley, unknown to his wife or to any of us, had a house there.'
 
Humphrey Statham looked up sharply; then whistled long and low.
 
'A house to which he was in the habit of retiring every other fortnight or so, giving out and leaving it to be imagined that he had gone down to some ironworks which he had purchased in the North, and which required his frequent supervision.'
 
'Yes,' said Statham, nodding his head composedly, 'I quite understand. Of course at this country residence he didn't pass in his own name?'
 
'How in the world could you have guessed that?' said Martin, astonished. 'You are right, however. It seems that at Hendon he was known as Mr. Claxton.'
 
'Claxton!' cried Humphrey. Good Heavens! what an extraordinary thing!' Then checking himself he repeated, 'Yes, known as Mr. Claxton.'
 
'The name seems familiar to you; it is, I suppose, not an uncommon one?' said Martin. 'However, by it he was known.'
 
'Yes,' said Humphrey Statham, absently. His thoughts were far away then, intent on Tatlow's story about Emily Mitchell's child and the lady who had adopted her. 'Yes,' he repeated, recalling his attention by an effort, 'I think I can see my way to some very awkward details. The man who passed as Claxton was not alone at this retreat?'
 
'He was not,' said Martin, looking uncomfortable. 'The cottage had, as I am informed, a young woman for its permanent mistress.'
 
'Exactly,' said Statham, 'as might have been anticipated.'
 
'Good Heavens!' cried Martin, in his turn, 'are such things so common that you take the revelation thus calmly? When this news was told me I was staggered beyond belief.'
 
'Perfectly natural in your case, my dear Gurwood,' said Humphrey Statham, who had resumed his old bearing and manner; 'had it been otherwise, you would not have been fitted for the position you occupy. What you and other men call 'knowledge of the world,' with which you are pleased to accredit me, means an experience of the worst side of human nature, laughed at, and glossed over by the thoughtless, but often horrible in its abandonment and profligacy. Such knowledge is hardly earned, and, to a man of any refinement and decent feeling, is eminently unsatisfactory in its results; but it is what we most of us have to go through, and in such matters it is of no use being squeamish. Well, Mr. Calverley was known as Mr. Claxton in his Hendon home, which he shared with a young woman. Has Mrs. Calverley been made acquainted with this story?'
 
'No; nor do I know how it is to be broken to her; that is one point on which I have to consult you. More than this, the--the person in question is, so far as I can make out, as yet unaware of what has transpired--I mean of Calverley's death.'
 
'The deuce she is! Has no one been to see her?'
 
'No one at all. The whole thing transpired in a very odd manner. It appears that the Hendon apothecary happened to be in the carriage with the London physician, of whom I have spoken, and recognised the dead man as his acquaintance, Mr. Claxton.'
 
'Then he was, of course, the very man of all others to tell this woman what had happened.'
 
'So I thought, and hinted as much as strongly as I dared. But he declined to take the hint; nor would .his companion, Doctor Haughton, the physician, help me out in my suggestion.'
 
'This is very awkward,' said Humphrey Statham, after a pause. 'You see your great object must naturally be to keep the story of this disgraceful connection from Mrs. Calverley's ears. She will have worry enough of her own, poor woman, without having her feelings harrowed by the discovery of her husband's baseness.'
 
'Yes,' said Martin Gurwood, but he spoke faintly. Knowing his mother as he did, he felt it impossible to indorse his friend's ideal description of her state.
 
'Well, it seems to me more than probable that in a very short time this young woman of whom we have been speaking, believing, as I think you said she did, that the soi-disant Mr. Claxton was a partner in Calverley's firm, will be sending down to the house of business in the City to inquire what has become of him. ............