you this little book, Almost Persuaded. I am sure you
are almost persuaded. Above all, I hope you will go on coming to the
meetings."

And in the course of the next two or three moments Lindsay found
himself, somewhat to his astonishment, again in the night of the
staircase, dismissed exactly as Mr. Harris had been, by the agency of a
printed volume. Only in his case a figure of much angelic beauty stood
at the top, holding a patent kerosene lamp high, to illumine his way. He
refrained from looking back lest she should see something too human
in his face, and vanish, leaving him in darkness which would be indeed
impenetrable.

CHAPTER VII

There was a panic in Dhurrumtolla; a "ticca-gharry"--the shabby
oblong box on wheels, dignified in municipal regulations as a hackney
carriage--was running away. Coolie mothers dragged naked children up
on the pavement with angry screams; drivers of ox-carts dug their lean
beasts in the side, and turned out of the way almost at a trot; only the
tram-car held on its course in conscious invincibility. A pariah tore
along beside the vehicle barking; crows flew up from the rubbish heaps
in the road by half-dozens, protesting shrilly; a pedlar of blue bead
necklaces just escaped being knocked down. Little groups of native
clerks and money-lenders stood looking after, laughing and speculating;
a native policeman, staring also, gave them sharp orders to disperse,
and they said to him, "Peace, brother." To each other they said,
"Behold, the driver is a 'mut-wallah'" (or drunken person); and
presently, as the thing whirled farther up the emptied perspective,
"Lo! the syce has fallen." The driver was certainly very drunk; his whip
circled perpetually above his head; the syce clinging behind was stiff
with terror, and fell off like a bundle of rags. Inside, Hilda Howe,
with a hand in the strap at each side and her feet against the opposite
seat, swayed violently and waited for what might happen, breathing
short. Whenever the gharry thrashed over the tram-lines, she closed her
eyes. There was a point near Cornwallis Street where she saw the
off front wheel make sickeningly queer revolutions; and another,
electrically close, when two tossing roan heads with pink noses appeared
in a gate to the left, heading smartly out, all unawares, at precisely
right angles to her own derelict equipage. That was the juncture of
the Reverend Stephen Arnold's interference, walking and discussing with
Ami