I. THE MYSTERY OF OZIAS MIDWINTER. (continued 2)

Startled as he was, Mr. Brock saw the serious necessity of being plain with a man who had come at that time, and had said those words to him.

“You have guessed right,” he answered. “I stand in the place of a father to Allan Armadale, and I am naturally unwilling to leave him, at his age, with a man whom I don’t know.”

Ozias Midwinter took a step forward to the table. His wandering eyes rested on the rector’s New Testament, which was one of the objects lying on it.

“You have read that Book, in the years of a long life, to many congregations,” he said. “Has it taught you mercy to your miserable fellow-creatures?”

Without waiting to be answered, he looked Mr. Brock in the face for the first time, and brought his hidden hand slowly into view.

“Read that,” he said; “and, for Christ’s sake, pity me when you know who I am.”

He laid a letter of many pages on the table. It was the letter that Mr. Neal had posted at Wildbad nineteen years since.