my shoulder,
lest the touch sully you."

George did take his hands from the vagrant's shoulder, but it was
to grasp the hand that waived them off and struggled to escape the
pressure. "You are innocent! you are innocent! forgive me that I
spoke to you of repentance as if you had been guilty. I feel you are
innocent,--feel it by my own heart. You turn away. I defy you to say
that you are guilty of what has been laid to your charge, of what has
darkened your good name, of what Mr. Hartopp believed to your prejudice.
Look me in the face and say, 'I am not innocent; I have not been
belied."'

Waife remained voiceless, motionless.

The young man, in whose nature lay yet unproved all those grand
qualities of heart, without which never was there a grand orator, a
grand preacher,--qualities which grasp the results of argument, and
arrive at the end of elaborate reasoning by sudden impulse,--here
released Waife's hand, rose to his feet, and, facing Waife, as the old
man sat with face averted, eyes downcast, breast heaving, said loftily,

"Forget that I may soon be the Christian minister whose duty bows
his ear to the lips of Shame and Guilt; whose hand, when it points
to Heaven, no mortal touch can sully; whose sublimest post is by the
sinner's side. Look on me but as man and gentleman. See, I now extend
this hand to you. If, as man and gentleman, you have done that which,
could all hearts be read, all secrets known, human judgment reversed by
Divine omniscience, forbids you to take this hand,--then reject it, go
hence: we part! But if no such act be on your conscience, however
you submit to its imputation,--THEN, in the name of Truth, as man and
gentleman to man and gentleman, I command you to take this right hand,
and, in the name of that Honour which bears no paltering, I forbid you
to disobey."

The vagabond rose, like the Dead at the spell of a Magician,--took, as
if irresistibly, the hand held out to him. And the scholar, overjoyed,
fell on his breast, embracing him as a son.

"You know," said George, in trembling accents, "that the hand you have
taken will never betray, never desert; but is it--is it really powerless
to raise and to restore you to your place?"

"Powerless amongst your kind for that indeed," answered Waife, in
accents still more tremulous. "All the kings of the earth are not strong
enough to raise a name that has once been trampled into the mire. Learn
that it is not only impossible for me to cle