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He was a man, as the reader will perhaps have gathered, of many shifts, and cool-headed; but for a moment he felt something of the anguish of discovery which had so tortured the surprised servant. The table shook beneath his hand, and it was with difficulty he repressed a wild impulse to overturn the candle, and escape in the darkness. He did repress it, however; nay, he forced his eyes to meet the rector's, and twisted his lips into the likeness of a smile. But when he thought of the scene afterward he found his chief comfort in the reflection that the light had been too faint to betray his full embarrassment.
Naturally the rector was the first to speak. "Clode! " he ejaculated softly, his surprise above words. "Is it you? Why, man," he continued, still standing with his hand on the door and his eyes devouring the scene, "what is up?"