illumined by the flames with flickering patches of orange; thick black hair; a thin black beard; moleskins, leggings, Crimean shirt, and a felt wideawake on the floor between his feet. This was absolutely all that Evelyn saw. But it was enough. The contempt she felt or affected for weak humanity did not trouble her just then. Miss Methuen forgot it. Miss Methuen, for one rare moment, forgot herself. She saw before her the burnt and bearded bushman who had known better days. And the sight was good in her eyes.
In a fortnight he would be back there as Lay Reader!
How a Bishop, who was also a man of the world, came to make so injudicious an arrangement, only Bishop Methuen could explain. The chances are that in contemplation of the evils from which it was to be his blessed privilege to rescue this young man, he lost sight of others of a less shocking description. Certainly that night, when he removed his pipe from his teeth (for this prelate smoked like any shearer) to kiss good-night to his daughter, and when Evelyn said, really meaning it at the moment, that she would do all she could for the permanent reformation of poor Mr. Follet—certainly it did not seem to the Bishop, just then, that he had made an injudicious arrangement.
Within the fortnight Follet duly reappeared—a quietly-dressed, clean-shaven, earnest young man. And within the week after that he found it impossible to sail under false colours with one so honest and high-souled, so frank and strong-minded as Miss Methuen. He told her his story—and the worst part of it, which the Bishop had not told her—in a sudden burst of mingled shame and thankfulness, and in a chance five minutes in the starlit verandah. His curse had been drink! Yet Miss Methuen heard this revolting confession without being visibly revolted—even without that contemptuous curl which came too easily to her lips.
"A bronzed face illumined by the flames."
"Forgive me," he murmured, "forgive me for telling you! I couldn't help it! I can't go on pretending to have been what I have not been—not to you, who are so honest, and frank, and strong!"
"How do you know I am strong? asked the girl, colouring with pleasure; for he had fingered the mainspring of her vanity.
"I see it."
"Oh, but I am not."
"You are! you are!" he exclaimed, contradicting her almost as vehemently as she desired. "And now you can never think the same of me again—though you will not show it!"
"You are wrong," whispered Evelyn, in her softest tone. "I will think all the more of you—for having climbed out of that pit! You are going on climbing now: only think how much nobler it will be to have climbed from the bottom of the horrible pit, than had you started from the level land, and never fallen!"
And, indeed, the sentiment itself was not
