to Cristel's better sense.

"Is this the hypocrite, who is deceiving me for his own wicked ends?" I
asked. "Does he look like the jealous monster who is plotting my
destruction, and who will succeed if I am fool enough to accept his
invitation?"

Poor dear, she was as obstinate as ever! "Think over what I have said to
you--think, for your own sake," was her only reply.

"And a little for _your_ sake?" I ventured to add.

She ran away from me, taking the path which would lead her home again.
The deaf man and I were left together. He looked after her until she was
out of sight. Then he produced his book of blank leaves. But, instead of
handing it to me as usual, he began to write in it himself.

"I have something to say to you," he explained.

It was only possible, while the book was in his possession, to remind him
that I could hear, and that he could speak, by using the language of
signs. I touched my lips, and pointed to him; I touched my ear, and
pointed to myself.

"Yes," he said, understanding me with his customary quickness; "but I
want you to remember as well as to hear. When I have filled this leaf, I
shall beg you to keep it about you, and to refer to it from time to
time."

He wrote on steadily, until he had filled both sides of the slip of
paper.

"Quite a little letter," he said. "Pray read it."

This is what I read:

"You must have seen for yourself that I was incapable of insulting you
and Miss Cristel by an outbreak of jealousy, when I found you together
just now. Only remember that we all have our weaknesses, and that it is
my hard lot to be in a state of contest with the inherited evil which is
the calamity of my life. With your encouragement, I may resist temptation
in the future, and keep the better part of me in authority over my
thoughts and actions. But, be on your guard, and advise Miss Cristel to
be on her guard, against false appearances. As we all know, they lie like
truth. Consider me. Pity me. I ask no more."

Straightforward and manly and modest--I appeal to any unprejudiced mind
whether I should not have committed a mean action, if I had placed an
evil construction on this?

"Am I understood?" he asked.

I signed to him to give me his book, and relieved him of anxiety in these
words:

"If I had failed to understand you, I should have felt ashamed of myself.
May I show what you have written to Cristel?"

He smiled, more sweetly and pleasantly than I had seen him smile ye