n my place, where everybody knows your face and you know theirs.
There will be no question here about your father, for you are looked
upon as my son. Now go away, and find Alice."

When Felix turned out of Liverpool Street station that evening, a tall,
gaunt-looking workman man offered to carry his bag for him. It was
filled with choice fruit from the rectory garden, grown on trees grafted
and pruned by Canon Pascal's own hands; and Felix had helped Alice to
gather it for some of his sick parishioners in the unwholesome
dwelling-places he visited.

"I am going no farther than the Mansion House," he answered, "and I can
carry it myself."

"You'd do me a kindness if you'd let me carry it," said the man.

It was not the tone of a common loafer, hanging about the station for
any chance job, and Felix turned to look at him in the light of the
street-lamp. It was the old story, he thought to himself, a decent
mechanic from the country, out of work, and lost in this great labyrinth
of a city. He handed his bag to him and walked on along the crowded
thoroughfare, soon forgetting that he was treading the flagged streets
of a city; he was back again, strolling through dewy fields in the cool
twilight, with Alice beside him, accompanying him to the quiet little
station. He thought no more of the stranger behind him, or of the bag he
carried, until he hailed an omnibus travelling westward.

"Here is your bag, sir," said the man.

"Ah! I'd forgotten it," exclaimed Felix. "Good night, and thank you."

He had just time to drop a shilling into his hand before the omnibus was
off. But the man stood there in front of the Mansion House, motionless,
with all the busy sea of life roaring around him, hearing nothing and
seeing nothing. This coin that lay in his hand had been given to him by
his son; his son's voice was still sounding in his ears. He had walked
behind him taking note of his firm strong step, his upright carriage and
manly bearing. It had been too swift a march for him, full of exquisite
pain and pleasure, which chance might never offer to him again.

"Move on, will you?" said a policeman authoritatively; and Jean Merle,
rousing himself from his reverie, went back to his lonely garret.

CHAPTER XV.

HAUNTING MEMORIES.

Felicita was slowly recovering her strength at the sea-side. She had
never before felt so seriously shaken in health, as since she had known
of the attachment of Felix to Alice Pascal; an att