ians!--If it had been, I could have borne it.--That
was all in my bargain,--the fair chance of war: but to be shut up by a
mistake!--at the very outset, too--by a boorish villain of a khan, on a
drunken suspicion;--a fellow whom I was trying to serve, and who
couldn't, or wouldn't, or daren't understand me--Oh, Grace, I was caught
in my own trap! I went out full blown with self-conceit. Never was any
one so cunning as I was to be!--Such a game as I was going to play, and
make my fortune by it!--And this brute to stop me short--to make a fool
of me--to keep me there eighteen months threatening to cut my head off
once a quarter, and wouldn't understand me, let me talk with the tongue
of the old serpent!"

"He didn't stop you: God stopped you!"

"You're right, Grace; I saw that at last! I found out that I had been
trying for years which was the stronger, God or I; I found out I had
been trying whether I could not do well enough without Him: and there I
found that I could not, Grace;--could not! I felt like a child who had
marched off from home, fancying it can find its way, and is lost at
once. I felt like a lost child in Australia once, for one moment: but
not as I felt in that prison; for I had not heard you, Grace, then. I
did not know that I had a Father in heaven, who had been looking after
me, when I fancied that I was looking after myself;--I don't half
believe it now--If I did, I should not have lost my nerve as I have
done!--Grace, I dare hardly stir about now, lest some harm should come
to me. I fancy at every turn, what if that chimney fell? what if that
horse kicked out?--and, Grace, you, and you only, can cure me of my new
cowardice. I said in that prison, and all the way home,--if I can but
find her!--let me but see her--ask her--let her teach me; and I shall be
sure! Let her teach me, and I shall be brave again! Teach me, Grace! and
forgive me!"

Grace was looking at him with her great soft eyes opening slowly, like a
startled hind's, as if the wonder and delight were too great to be taken
in at once. The last words unlocked her lips.

"Forgive you? What! Do you forgive me?"

"You? It is I am the brute; ever to have suspected you. My conscience
told me all along I was a brute! And you--have you not proved it to me
in this last minute, Grace?--proved to me that I am not worthy to kiss
the dust from off your feet?"

Grace lay silent in his arms: but her eyes were fixed upon him; her
hands were folded on