nversation, for this startling incident had disclosed to him the whole
slow and hidden movement of the providence of his life towards this
climax and opportunity. He was profoundly moved by a clear conviction
that a divine hand must have planned and superintended this whole web of
events, and had intentionally led him from contemplating the tragic
issue of his sinful deeds and desires, to this vision of the good he had
done in the better moments of his life. This strange coincidence, to a
mind like his, could leave no room for doubt that the hand of God was on
him, and that, after all, he had been neither abandoned nor forgotten.
The lumberman had been sent at this critical moment to save him! There
was still hope!

With that instantaneous movement in which his disordered conceptions of
life invariably re-formed themselves, the chaotic events of the past
shifted themselves into a purposeful and comprehensible series, and
revealed beyond peradventure the hand of God.

And as this conclusion burst upon him, he broke into the conversation of
Mantel and the lumberman with the warmest exclamations of gratitude and
happiness.

They talked a long time in the quiet night, asking and answering
questions. The two friends besought the evangelist to accompany them to
their rooms, but he said:

"I have given you my message and must pass on. My work is to bear
testimony. I sow the seed and leave its cultivation and the harvest to
others."

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE GREAT REFUSAL

"But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful."

Too busy with their own thoughts to talk on the way home, on entering
their rooms Mantel threw himself into a chair, while David nervously
began to gather his clothes together and crowd them hastily into a
satchel.

"What's up?" asked Mantel.

"I'm off in the morning."

"Which way are you going?"

"There is only one way. I am going to find Pepeeta."

"Do you really expect to succeed?"

"Expect to! I am determined!"

"It's a sudden move."

"Sudden! everything is sudden. Events have simply crashed upon me
lately! When I think of the fluctuations of hope and despair, of
certainty and uncertainty through which I have gone in the past few
hours, I am stupefied."

"And I never go through any! My life is like a dead and stagnant
sea--nothing agitates it. If I could once be upheaved from the bottom or
churned into a foam from the top, I think I might amount to somethin