was going into the infection. Yes, I said, but there was that lock
of hair and the worsted cuff. Such things did carry contagion, and he
ought to burn them at once.

"Poor Dora!" he said, rather indignantly.

Oh that I had seen them burnt! Oh that I had taken him to Dr.
Kingston's for vaccination before I went away, instead of contenting
myself with the unmeaning, half-incredulous promise to "see about it!"
by which, of course, he meant to mention it when George Yolland came
home. Yet it might have made no difference, for he had been fondling
and smoothing that fatal curl all the time we were talking over the
letter.

He came to the station with me, gave me the kindest messages for Dora,
arranged for my telegraphing reports of her every day--took care of me
as men will do when they seem to think their womankind incapable
without them, making all the more of me because I did not venture to
take Colman, whom I sent to visit her home. He insisted on Mr. Ben
Yolland, who had been detained a day behind his brother, going in a
first-class carriage with me. I leant out at the window for the
parting kiss, and the last sight I had of my dear Harold, as the train
steamed out of the station, was bearing on his shoulder a fat child--a
potter's--who had just arrived by the train, and had been screaming to
his mother to carry him, regardless of the younger baby and baskets in
her arms. It might well make my last sight of him remind me of St.
Christopher.

That journey with the curate was comfortable in itself, and a great
comfort to me afterwards. We could not but rejoice together over that
Sunday, and Ben Yolland showed himself deeply struck with the
simplicity and depth that had been revealed to him, the reality of
whatever Harold said, and his manner of taking his dire disappointment
as the just and natural outcome of his former life. Many men would have
been soured and driven back to evil by such a rejection. Harold had
made it the occasion of his most difficult victory and sharpest
struggle; yet all the time he was unconscious how great a victory it
was. And so thorough was the penitence, so great the need of
refreshment after the keen struggle for self-mastery, and so needful
the pledge of pardon, that though he had never been confirmed, there
was no doubt as to making him welcome at once to the Heavenly Feast.
Well that it was so!

The "What next" concerned Mr. Yolland as much as it did me. He could
not bear