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"We're all going to be murdered in our beds," she quavered. Terrified, the two girls huddled closer, and with an arm round each, Mrs. Stevens sat there, waiting.

Whether Mark Ablett was a bore or not depended on the point of view, but it may be said at once that he never bored his company on the subject of his early life.

However, stories get about.

There is always somebody who knows.

It was understood-and this, anyhow, on Mark's own authority-that his father had been a country clergyman.

It was said that, as a boy, Mark had attracted the notice, and patronage, of some rich old spinster of the neighbourhood, who had paid for his education, both at school and university.

At about the time when he was coming down from Cambridge, his father had died; leaving behind him a few debts, as a warning to his family, and a reputation for short sermons, as an example to his successor.

Neither warning nor example seems to have been effective.

Mark went to London, with an allowance from his patron, and (it is generally agreed) made acquaintance with the money-lenders.

He was supposed, by his patron and any others who inquired, to be "writing"; but what he wrote, other than letters asking for more time to pay, has never been discovered.

However, he attended the theatres and music halls very regularly-no doubt with a view to some serious articles in the "Spectator" on the decadence of the English stage.

Fortunately (from Mark's point of view) his patron died during his third year in London, and left him all the money he wanted.

From that moment his life loses its legendary character, and becomes more a matter of history.

He settled accounts with the money-lenders, abandoned his crop of wild oats to the harvesting of others, and became in his turn a patron.

He patronized the Arts.

It was not only usurers who discovered that Mark Ablett no longer wrote for money; editors were now offered free contributions as well as free lunches; publishers were given agreements for an occasional slender volume, in which the author paid all expenses and waived all royalties; promising young painters and poets dined with him; and he even took a theatrical company on tour, playing host and "lead" with equal lavishness.

He was not what most people call a snob.

A snob has been defined carelessly as a man who loves a lord; and, more carefully, as a mean lover of mean things-which would be a little unkind to the peerage if the first definition were true.

Mark had his vanities undoubtedly, but he would sooner have met an actor-manager than an earl; he would have spoken of his friendship with Dante-had that been possible-more glibly than of his friendship with the Duke.

Call him a snob if you like, but not the worst kind of snob; a hanger-on, but to the skirts of Art, not Society; a climber, but in the neighbourhood of Parnassus, not Hay Hill.

His patronage did not stop at the Arts.

It also included Matthew Cayley, a small cousin of thirteen, whose circumstances were as limited as had been Mark's own before his patron had rescued him.

He sent the Cayley cousin to school and Cambridge.

His motives, no doubt, were unworldly enough at first; a mere repaying to his account in the Recording Angel's book of the generosity which had been lavished on himself; a laying-up of treasure in heaven.

CHAPTER II. Mr. Gillingham Gets Out at the Wrong Station

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