he tongue wag at times!"

Ruth, her strength refreshed by the few minutes' rest, thanked him
and arose to continue her search.

"Stay," said the Penitent. "Your Excellency has not heard all the
story, nor yet arrived near the moral. . . . Between ourselves the
reverend fathers were lenient with me because--well, it may have been
because I hold some influence among the beggars of Lisbon, who are
numerous and not always meek, in spite of the promise that meekness
shall inherit the earth. I may confess, in short, that my presence
in the procession was to some extent a farce, and the result of a
compromise. But, all the same, your Excellency does ill to
disbelieve in miracles: as I dare say your Excellency, casting an eye
about Lisbon on this particular day of All the Saints, will not
dispute?"

"Alas, sir! I have seen too many horrors to-day to be in any mood to
argue."

"Then," said the Penitent, skipping up, "you are in the precise mood
to be convinced; as I have seen men, under extremity of torture,
ready to believe anything. Come!"

She hesitated. "Where would you lead me?"

"To a miracle," he answered, and, with a fine gesture, flinging his
tattered cloak over his shoulder, he led the way. He strode rapidly
down a couple of streets. Once or twice coming to a chasm across the
roadway he paused, drew back, and cleared it with a leap. But at
these pitfalls he neither turned nor offered Ruth a hand.
She followed him panting, so agile was his pace.

The first street ran south, the second east. He entered a third
which turned north again as if to lead back into the Square.
After following it for twenty yards he halted and allowed her to
catch up with him.

"You are a devoted wife," said the Penitent admiringly. "Would it
alter your devotion at all to know that he was with another woman?"

"No," answered Ruth. "I knew it, in fact." She wondered that this
beggar man could force her to speak so frankly.

"In an earthquake," said he, "one gets down to naked truth, or near
to it. If he were unfaithful now--would that alter your desire to
find and save him?"

"Sir, why do you ask these things?"

"Did your Excellency not know that its beggars are the eyes of
Lisbon? But you have not answered me."

"Nor will. That I am here--is it not enough?"

The Penitent peered at her in the dim light and nodded. He led her
forward a pace or two and pointed to something imbedded in a pile of
stones, lime, rubb