“That’s my point,” said Silas Finn.

Paul looked from one to the other, darkly.  In a kind of dull fierce passion he had made up his mind to clear himself before the world, to rend to tatters his garments of romance, to snap his fingers at the stars and destiny and such-like deluding toys, to stand a young Ajax defying the thunderbolts.  Here came the first check.

“If they found out as how he’d done time, they’d find out for why,” said Bill, cocking his head earnestly.

As Paul, engaged in sombre thought, made no reply, Silas turned away, his hands uplifted in supplication, and prayed aloud.  He had sinned in giving way to his anger.  He prostrated himself before the divine vengeance.  If this was his apportioned punishment, might God give him meekness and strength to bear it.  The tremulous, crying voice, the rapt, fanatical face, and the beseeching attitude struck a bizarre note in the comfortable and worldly room.  Supported on either side by Jane, helpless and anxious, and Barney Bill, crooked, wrinkled, with his close-cropped white hair and little liquid diamond eyes, still nervously tearing his hat-brim, he looked almost grotesque.  To Paul he seemed less a man than a creation of another planet, with unknown and incalculable instincts and impulses, who had come to earth and with foolish hand had wiped out the meaning of existence.  Yet he felt no resentment, but rather a weary pity for the stranger blundering through an unsympathetic world.  As soon as there came a pause in the prayer, he said not ungently: 

“The Almighty is not going to use me as an instrument to punish you, if I can help it.  I quite appreciate your point.  I’ll say nothing.”

Barney Bill jerked his thumb towards the chair where the Princess had been sitting: 

“She won’t give it away?”

Paul smiled sadly.  “No, old man.  She’ll keep it to herself.”

That marked the end of the interview.  Paul accompanied the three downstairs.

“I meant to act for the best, Paul,” said Silas piteously, on parting.  “Tell me that I haven’t made you my enemy.”

“God forbid,” said Paul.

He went slowly up to his room again and threw himself in his writing chair.  His eye fell upon the notes on the sheet of foolscap.  The Radical candidate having been chosen, they were no longer relevant to his speech.  He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the waste-paper basket.  His speech!  He held his head in both hands.  A couple of hours hence he would be addressing a vast audience, the centre of the hopes of thousands of his fellow countrymen.  The thought beat upon his brain.  He had had the common nightmare of standing with conductor’s baton in front of a mighty orchestra and being paralyzed by sense of impotence.  No less a nightmare was his present position.  A couple of hours ago he was athrill with confidence and joy of battle.  But then he was a different man.  The morning