was performing this self-inflicted penance that he came upon Gabriel,
who was hastening toward him in behalf of John Henry.

For an instant a gleam of light shone on Cyrus's features, and they
stood out, palely illuminated, like the features of a bronze statue
above which a torch suddenly flares. His shoulders, which stooped until
his coat had curved in the back, straightened themselves with a jerk,
while he held out his hand, on which an old sabre cut was still visible.
This faded scar had always seemed to Gabriel the solitary proof that
the great man was created of flesh and blood.

"I've come about a little matter of business," began the rector in an
apologetic tone, for in Cyrus's presence he was never without an uneasy
feeling that the problems of the spirit were secondary to the problems
of finance.

"Well, I'm just going into the office. Come in and sit down. I'm glad to
see you. You bring back the four happiest years of my life, Gabriel."

"And of mine, too. It's queer, isn't it, how the savage seems to sleep
in the most peaceable of men? We were half starved in those days, half
naked, and without the certainty that we'd live until sunset--but,
dreadful as it sounds, I was happier then--God help me!--than I've ever
been before or since."

Passing through an outer office, where a number of young men were
bending over ledgers, they entered Cyrus's private room, and sat down in
two plain pine chairs under the coloured lithograph of an engine which
ornamented the largest space on the wall. The room was bare of the most
ordinary comforts, as though its owner begrudged the few dollars he must
spend to improve his surroundings.

"Well, those days are over, and you say it's business that you've come
about?" retorted Cyrus, not rudely, but with the manner of a man who
seldom wastes words and whose every expenditure either of time or of
money must achieve some definite result.

"Yes, it's business." The rector's tone had chilled a little, and he
added in spite of his judgment, "I'm afraid it's a favour. Everybody
comes begging to you, I suppose?"

"Then, it's the Sunday-school picnic, I reckon. I haven't forgotten it.
Smithson!" An alert young man appeared at the door. "Make a note that
Mr. Pendleton wants coaches for the Saint James' Church picnic on the
twenty-ninth. You said twenty-ninth, didn't you, Gabriel?"

"If the weather's good," replied Gabriel meekly, and then as Smithson
withdrew, he glanced nervousl