ent where you can get right in the
business--and earn salvation for doing it. I don't know just why I
should say this to you, but it sort of does me good to tell it. Once I
heard one of your kind tell a sorrowing mother that her little child
had gone to hell because it had died before he--the smug
hypocrite--had sprinkled its little body with a handful of water.
There's humanity for you! It may interest you to know that I thrashed
that man then and there. You are all alike; I know the breed. When
there is found a real man among you--and there are such--he is so
different in everything, including his religion, as to be really of
another race. I came here without the slightest expectation of getting
what I asked for. As I said before, I know your breed, and I know just
how well your two-thousand-year-old doctrines apply to practical
cases. There is another way, but I hated to use it. You'd take it
quick enough, I dare say. Here is where I should receive aid. I may
have to get it where I should not. You a man of God! Why, you poor
little insect, I can't even get angry at you!"

He stood for a moment looking at the confused and troubled clergyman.
Then he went out.

_Chapter Ten_

Almost immediately the door opened again.

"You, Miss Albret!" cried Crane.

"What does this mean?" demanded Virginia, imperiously. "Who is that
man? In what danger does he stand? What does he want a rifle for? I
insist on knowing."

She stood straight and tall in the low room, her eyes flashing, her
head thrown back in the assured power of command.

The Reverend Crane tried to temporize, hesitating over his words. She
cut him short.

"That is nonsense. Everybody seems to know but myself. I am no child.
I came to consult you--my spiritual adviser--in regard to this very
case. Accidentally I overheard enough to justify me in knowing more."

The clergyman murmured something about the Company's secrets. Again
she cut him short.

"Company's secrets! Since when has the Company confided in Andrew
Laviolette, in Wishkobun, in _you_!"

"Possibly you would better ask your father," said Crane, with some
return of dignity.

"It does not suit me to do so," replied she. "I insist that you answer
my questions. Who is this man?"

"Ned Trent, he says."

"I will not be put off in this way. _Who_ is he? _What_ is he?"

"He is a Free Trader," replied the Reverend Crane with the air of a
man who throws down a bomb and is afraid of the con