consequences.

Mr Clayton spent many hours daily in a small room, called _a study_. It
was a chamber sacred to the occupation followed there. I had not access
to it--nor had any stranger, with the exception of two ill-favoured men,
whom I had found, for weeks together, constant attendants upon my
benefactor. For a month at a time, not a single day elapsed during which
they were not closeted for a considerable period with the divine. A
three weeks' interval of absence would then take place; Mr Clayton
prosecuted his studies alone and undisturbed, and no strange foot would
cross the threshold until the ill-looking men returned, and passed some
five weeks in the small sanctuary as before. Who could they be? I had
never directly asked the question, curious as I had been to know their
history and the purpose of their visits. Had I not learned from Mr
Clayton the impropriety and sinfulness of judging humanity by its looks,
I should have formed a most uncharitable opinion of their characters.
They were hard-featured men, sallow of complexion, rigid in their looks.
I knew that, attached to the church of Mr Clayton, were two
missionaries--men of rare piety, and some of humble origin--small
boot-makers, in fact; sometimes I believed that the visiters and they
were the same individuals. Circumstances, however, unfavourable to this
idea, arose, and I turned from one conjecture to another, until I
reposed, at length, in the belief that they were sinners--sinners of the
deepest dye--such as their ill-omened looks betrayed--and that they
sought the kind and ever-ready minister to obtain his counsel, and to
share his prayers. At all events, this was a subject upon which I
received no enlightening from their confidant. Once I took occasion to
make mention of it; but, in an instant, I perceived that my enquiry was
not deemed proper to be answered. It was to this forbidden closet--the
scene of so much mystery--that, to my great surprize, I found myself