looks more like a
madman than a beggar."

She stepped forward and spoke to the man again--her voice sounded gentle
and persuasive to Brand, in this tongue which he could not understand.
When she had finished, the uncouth person in the tattered garments
dropped on both knees on the pavement, and took her hand in his, and
kissed it in passionate gratitude. Then he rose, and stood with his cap
in his hand.

"He will go with you. I am so sorry to trouble you, Mr. Brand; and I
have not even said, 'How do you do?'"

To hear this beautiful voice after so long a silence--to find those
calm, dark, friendly eyes regarding him--bewildered him, or gave him
courage, he knew not which. He said to her, with a quick flush on his
forehead,

"May I come back to tell you how I succeed?"

She only hesitated for a second.

"If you have time. If you care to take the trouble."

He carried away with him the look of her face--that filled his heart
with sunlight. In the hansom, into which he bundled his unkempt
companion, if only he had known enough Russian, he would have expressed
gratitude to him. Beggar or maniac, or whatever he was, had he not been
the means of procuring for George Brand that long-coveted,
long-dreamed-of smile of welcome?

CHAPTER XIV.

A RUSSIAN EPISODE.

"Is that the way you answer an appeal for help?" With that gentle
protest still lingering in his ear, he was not inclined to be hard on
this unfortunate wretch who was in the cab with him; and yet at the same
time he was resolved to prevent any repetition of the scene he had just
witnessed. At the last he discovered that the man had picked up in his
wanderings a little German. His own German was not first-rate; it was
fluent, forcible, and accurate enough, so far as hotels and
railway-stations were concerned; elsewhere it had a tendency to halt,
blunder, and double back on itself. But, at all events, he managed to
convey to his companion the distinct intimation that any further
troubling of that young lady would only procure for him broken head.

The dull, stupid, savage-looking face betrayed no sign of intelligence.
He repeated the warning again and again; and at last, at the phrase
"that young lady," the dazed small eyes lit up somewhat, and the man
clasped his hands.

"Ein Engel!" he said, apparently to himself. "Ein Engel--ein Engel! Ach
Gott--wie schon--wie gemuthlich!"

"Yes, yes, yes," Brand said, "that is all very well; but one is not
p