`All the week I work for the glory of man, and on Sunday for the glory of God. That's more real than the other - hey? I have a little to do here at this stile.' The man turned as he spoke to an opening at the roadside leading into a pasture.'If you'll wait a moment,'he added, `I shall not be long.'

As he had her basket she could not well do otherwise; and she waited, observing him. He set down her basket and the tin pot, and stirring the paint with the brush that was in it began painting large square letters on the middle board of the three composing the stile, placing a comma after each word, as if to give pause while that word was driven well home to the reader's heart--

THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT.

2 PET. ii. 3.

Against the peaceful landscape, the pale, decaying tints of the copses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichened stile-boards, these staring vermilion words shone forth. They seemed to shout themselves out and make the atmosphere ring. Some people might have cried `Alas, poor Theology!' at the hideous defacement - the last grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time. But the words entered Tess with accusatory horror. It was as if this man had known her recent history; yet he was a total stranger.

Having finished his text he picked up her basket, and she mechanically resumed her walk beside him.

`Do you believe what you paint?' she asked in low tones.

`Believe that tex? Do I believe in my own existence!'

`But,' said she tremulously, `suppose your sin was not of your seeking?'

He shook his head.

`I cannot split hairs on that burning query,' he said. `I have walked hundreds of miles this past summer, painting these texes on every wall, gate, and stile in the length and breadth of this district. I leave their application to the hearts of the people who read 'em.'

`I think they are horrible,' said Tess. `Crushing! killing!'

`That's what they are meant to be!' he replied in a trade voice. `But you should read my hottest ones - them I kips for slums and seaports. They'd make ye wriggle! Not but what this is a very good tex for rural districts... Ah - there's a nice bit of blank wall up by that barn standing to waste. I must put one there - one that it will be good for dangerous young females like yerself to heed. Will ye wait, missy?'

`No,' said she; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. A little way forward she turned her head. The old gray wall began to advertise a similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and unwonted mien, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon to perform. It was with a sudden flush that she read and realized what was to be the inscription he was now half-way through--

THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT -

Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted--

`If you want to ask for edification on these things of moment, there's a very earnest good man going to preach a charity-sermon to-day in the parish you are going to - Mr Clare of Emminster. I'm not of his persuasion now, but he's a good man, and he'll expound as well as any parson I know. 'Twas he began the work in me.'