hirts frayed, and his boots patched--and his income was a thousand
pounds a week.

In his work he was unusually broad-minded and unprejudiced. He spent
none of his time in efforts to lure the occupants of the public-house on
his left into the church on his right. Indeed, he was an excellent
customer of the former institution, and was on the best of terms with
its landlord, who was an ex-pugilist after his kind. He made no
discrimination in the dispensation of his charity. He worked on the
principle that before he reformed a man he must feed him--so before he
attempted to deal with the mind he relieved the body. He was open-handed
and unsuspicious--and wonderfully beloved. There were hundreds of people
in that street, and many other streets, who would gladly have laid down
their lives for him--and who imposed on him shockingly day after day in
the minor matters of life. The Mad Philanthropist never turned
away--never refused. He was a builder of Men. No one knew, or cared, who
he was or whence he came. He never gave account of himself, or spoke of
his own affairs. Curiosity was the one thing he resented. He enclosed
himself, so far as private matters were concerned, within the
fortifications of a reserve which no one had succeeded in penetrating.
Though he held a thousand confidences, he made none. In listening to the
experiences of others he never referred to his own, or even hinted
whether they had been sweet or bitter. He went on his silent way--and
the world was the better for him.

* * * * *

In his bare sitting-room he sat with his face between his hands. A girl
knelt on the floor beside him.

She was a remarkable girl. Wild, wayward, with all the passions--brimful
with untamed vitality--incapable of the common restraints. Her face was
neither beautiful, nor, perhaps, even pretty--but Diana herself might
have envied the full, lithe figure, the free grace of her movements. She
was the creature of her desires--knowing no laws that opposed them. A
Primitive Woman, from the dawn of the world.

"Jim," she pleaded. "Jim...."

He made no movement.

"Be a man," she whispered. "Pull yourself together."

He put her away from him roughly.

"I wish you'd go," he said dully. "I don't want you here."

Her face grew whiter. Her hands crept to him again. The light of a great
love was in her eyes.

"Oh, Jim," she whispered, "I know I'm not like she was. I'm not
beautiful. I'm not wonderf