a pretty girl, whom he had been following in the street, unwittingly
enticed him into a revivalist meeting. He described that meeting so
vividly that had my stupefied mind been capable of fresh emotions, I too
might have been converted at second hand by the revivalist preacher.
He repeated parts of the sermon, rose to his feet, waved his arms,
thundered out the commonplaces of Salvation Army Christianity, as if
he had made an amazing theological discovery. It was pathetic. It was
ludicrous. It was also inconceivably painful. At last he mopped his
forehead and shiny head.

"Before that meeting was over I was on my knees praying beside the girl
whom I had designed to ruin. I went into the streets a converted man,
filled with the grace of God. I resolved to devote my life to saving
souls for Christ. My old habits of sin fell away from me like a garment.
I studied for the ministry. I am now in deacon's orders, and I am the
incumbent of a little tin mission church in Hoxton. God moves in a
mysterious way, Sir Marcus."

"He is generally credited with doing so," said I, stupidly.

"You are doubtless wondering, Sir Marcus," he went on, "why I placed
such a long interval between my awakening and my communicating with my
wife. I set myself a period of probation. I desired to be assured of
God's will. It was essential that I should test my strength of purpose,
and my power of making a life's atonement, as far as the things of this
world are concerned, for the wrongs I have inflicted on her. I have come
now to offer her a Christian home."

I looked at him open-mouthed.

"Do you expect Judith to go and live with you as your wife, in Hoxton?"
I asked, bluntly.

"Why not? She is my wife."

I rose and walked about the room in agitation. Somehow such a
contingency had not entered my bewildered head.

"Why not, Sir Marcus?" he repeated.

"Because Judith isn't that kind of woman at all," I said, desperately.
"She doesn't like Hoxton, and would be as much out of place in a
tin-mission church as I should be in a cavalry charge."

"God will see to her fitness," said he, gravely. "To him all things are
easy."

"But she has considerable philosophic doubt as to his personal
existence," I cried.

He smiled prophetically and waved away her doubt with a gesture.

"I have no fears on that score," he observed.

"But it is preposterous," I objected once more, changing my ground;
"Judith craves the arrears of gaiety and laughter whi