She diverted the conversation by turning to me, and saying that, while the information I had given her was no doubt valuable, and that she should regulate her course accordingly, and advise all her friends to do the same, yet she felt it her duty to reprimand me for telling the truth so bluntly.  She knew that I had done it for the best, but if there were really any hope for this wicked man, if he had really decided upon a new life, we ought to encourage him.  Did I think him in earnest?

I told her that it hurt me to say it, but that I had no great confidence in Mr. Harlson’s protestations.  He was of the earth, earthy.  A friend, it was true, should bear a friend’s infirmities, but he should not ask other people to bear them, nor should he testify to anything but the truth.  Mr. Harlson might or might not be in earnest in what he had declared, but, even if in earnest, there was the matter of persistency.  I doubted seriously his ability to overcome the habits of a lifetime.

She was becoming really interested in the chaffing.

“What is the nature of Mr. Harlson’s great iniquity?”

“There, Miss Cornish, I am justified in drawing the line in my reply.  I have conscientiously explained that he was, in a general way, a villain of the deepest dye, but to make specifications would be unfriendly, and I know you wouldn’t have me that.”

Harlson said that he was very much obliged for my toleration, or would be until he got me alone, and Miss Cornish showed a proper spirit, and so I left them.  But I had no evidence that she believed what I had said.

As we walked home together in the early morning, Harlson told me more of the young lady.  She was living with an aunt, he said, and was, otherwise, alone in the world.  She had but a little income, barely enough to live on, but she had courage unlimited, and tact, and was not insignificant as a social factor.  She had the sturdiness of her ancestry, in which the name of Jean ran.

“I like it,” Harlson said; “it fits her—­’Jean Cornish’—­little brown ’Jean Cornish’—­little leopardess, little, wise, good woman.”

I told him that he was mixing his similes, and that in a broad, comprehensive way he had become a fool.

“I tell you I’m in love with her already,” he blurted out, “and somehow, some day, I will have her, and wear her and care for her!”

“But, my dear boy, don’t be insane.  There is the problem we were discussing last night.  Have you a solution of it?  And first catch your hare.  Have you caught your pretty hare yet?  I’ll admit it’s possible.  Women are fools over such fellows as you when they should be adhesive to good, plodding members of society, like the friend who is now advising you, but Miss Cornish is not a fool, you see, and I don’t think you deserve her.”

“For that matter, neither do I,” he answered; “but I will deserve her yet.  I must do more of many things, and cease to do many things.  I believe I comprehend better now than I ever did the words in the service, ‘We have done those things and left undone,’ and all that.  But you’ll see a difference.  I’ll make her proud of me.  That’s the right way to become clean, isn’t it, old man?”