_believe_ him, Jimmy!" he could hear her say in her delicious
voice.

"Yes," he mentally told her, "I believe him."

"You think that to save a woman's name and honor he has become an
outcast on the face of the earth ... Jimmy!"

He still gently replied to her:

"Men who love, you know, have but one code--the woman and honor."

Still mocking, but gentle as would have been the touch of the roses in
the bowl near the photograph, her voice told him,

"Then he's worth saving, Jimmy."

Worth saving ... he agreed, and turned to his guest. In doing so he
saw that Ruggles had come into the drawing-room to remove the
coffee-tray.

"Beg pardon, sir, but you mentioned there would be a letter to send
shortly?"

"By Jove! so I did!" exclaimed Bulstrode. "I beg your pardon; will you
excuse me while I write a line at the desk?" The line was an order to
the florist.

For some reason the eyes of the Englishman had not quitted the butler's
face, and Ruggles, with cold insolence, had stared at him in turn.
Waring, albeit in another man's clothes, fed and seated before a
friendly hearth, and once again within the pale of his own class, had
regained something of his natural air and feeling of superiority. He
resented the servant's insolence, and his face was angrily flushed as
Bulstrode gave his orders, and the man left the room.

"I must go away," he said, rather brusquely. "I can never thank you
for what you have done. I feel as if I had been in a dream."

"Sit down." His companion ignored his words. "Sit down."

"It's late."

"For what, my friend?"

"I must find some place to sleep."

"You have found it," gently smiled Bulstrode. "Your room is prepared
for you here." Then he interrupted: "No thanks--no thanks. If what
you tell me is all I think it is, I'm proud to share my roof with you,
Waring."

"Don't think well of me--don't!" blurted out the other. "You don't
know what a ruined vagabond I am. When you send me out to-morrow I
shall begin again; but let me tell you that although I've herded with
tramps and thieves, been in the hospital and lock-up, and worked in the
hell of a furnace in a ship's hold, nothing hurt me any more, not after
I left England--not after those days when I waited in Liverpool for a
word--for a sign--not after that, all you see the marks of now--nothing
hurts now but the memory. I'm immune."

"You will feel differently--you will humanize."

"Never!" exclaimed the tramp.