“One can’t do that in one’s study.  Mixing with them is the only plan.  No doubt they’re inconsistent enough.  The more you see of them, the less you trust them; and yet the more you see of them, the more you like them.  Can you solve that paradox from your books?”

“I will try,” said Frank.  “I generally have more than one to think over when you go.  But, surely, there are men so fallen that they are utterly insensible to good.”

“Very likely.  There’s no saying in this world what may not be.  Only I never saw one.  I’ll tell you a story:  you may apply it as you like.  When I was on the Texan expedition, and raw to soldiering and camping, we had to sleep in low ground, and suffered terribly from a miasma.  Deadly cold, it was, when it came; and the man who once got chilled through with it, just died.  I was lying on the bare ground one night, and chilly enough I was—­for I was short of clothes, and had lost my buffalo robe—­but fell asleep:  and on waking the next morning, I found myself covered up in my comrade’s blankets, even to his coat, while he was sitting shivering in his shirt sleeves.  The cold fog had come down in the night, and the man had stripped himself, and sat all night with death staring him in the face, to save my life.  And all the reason he gave was, that if one of us must die, it was better the older should go first, and not a youngster like me.  And,” said Tom, lowering his voice, “that man was a murderer!”

“A murderer!”

“Yes; a drunken, gambling, cut-throat rowdy as ever grew ripe for the gallows.  Now, will you tell me that there was nothing in that man but what the devil put there?”

Frank sat meditating awhile on this strange story, which is moreover a true one; and then looked up with something like tears in his eyes.

“And he did not die?”

“Not he!  I saw him die afterwards—­shot through the heart, without time even to cry out.  But I have not forgotten what he did for me that night; and I’ll tell you what, sir!  I do not believe that God has forgotten it either.”

Frank was silent for a few moments, and then Tom changed the subject.

“I want to know what you can tell me about this Mr. Vavasour.”

“Hardly anything, I am sorry to say.  I was at his house at tea, two or three times, when I first came; and I had very agreeable evenings, and talks on art and poetry:  but I believe I offended him by hinting that he ought to come to church, which he never does, and since then our acquaintance has all but ceased.  I suppose you will say, as usual, that I played my cards badly there also.”

“Not at all,” said Tom, who was disposed to take any one’s part against Elsley.  “If a clergyman has not a right to tell a man that, I don’t see what right he has of any kind.  Only,” added he, with one of his quaint smiles, “the clergyman, if he compels a man to deal at his store, is bound to furnish him with the articles which he wants.”