He unfurled a crushed copy of a Quebec journal a few days old.  “It says,” he began translating, that “there’s a man called Cameron, who’s been nicknamed Lazarus Cameron, because he seemed to be dead and came to life again.”

He looked hard at the paper, as if needing a few moments to formulate further translation.

“Do go on,” said Eliza, with manifest impatience.

“Why now, you’re real interested, Miss White.”

“Anybody would want to know what you’re at.”

“Well, but, considering it’s any one so composed as you, Miss White, it’s real pleasant to see you so keen.”

“I’m keen for my work.  I haven’t time, like you, to stand here all day.”

All this time he had been looking at the paper.  “What I’ve read so far, you see, is what I’ve told you before as having happened to my knowledge at a place called Turrifs Station.”

“Is that all?”

“No,” and he went on translating. “’Whether this man was dead or not, he is now alive, but partially deaf and blind; and whether he has ever seen anything of the next world or not, he has now no interest in this one, but spends his whole time praying or preaching, living on crusts, and walking great distances in solitary places.  He has lately appeared in the suburbs of this city’ (that is Quebec) ’and seems to be a street-preacher of no ordinary power.’”

Harkness stopped with an air of importance.

“Is that all?” asked Eliza.

He gave her another paper, in English, to read.  This contained a longer and more sensational account of the same tale, and with this difference, that instead of giving the simple and sentimental view of the French writer, the English journalist jeered greatly, and also stated that the nickname Lazarus had been given in derision, and that the man, who was either mad or an imposter, had been hooted, pelted, and even beaten in the streets.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“Unless you can tell me any more.”  He did not say this lightly.

“Is that all?” she asked again, as if his words had been unmeaning.

“Well now, I think that’s enough.  ’Tisn’t every day this poor earth of ours is favoured by hearing sermons from one as has been t’other side of dying.  I think it would be more worth while to hear him than to go to church, I do.”

“Do you mean to say,” she asked, with some asperity, “that you really believe it?”

“I tell you I saw the first part of it myself, and unless you can give me a good reason for not believing the second, I’m inclined to swallow it down whole, Miss Cameron—­I beg your pardon, White, I mean.  One gets real confused in names, occasionally.”

“Well,” said Eliza, composedly, preparing to leave him, “I can’t say I understand it, Mr. Harkness, but I must say it sounds too hard for me to believe.”

He looked after her with intense curiosity in his eyes, and in the next few days returned to the subject in her presence again and again, repeating to her all the comments that were made on the story in the bar-room, but he could not rouse her from an appearance of cheerful unconcern.