into the room, 'I will go now to see the
Pere Abbe, if it is permitted.'

"On the garden path I bade him good-bye. He shook my hand. There was an
odd smile in his face. Half-an-hour later I saw him coming again through
the arcade.

"'Father,' he said, 'I am not going away. I have asked the Pere Abbe's
permission to stay here. He has given it to me. To-morrow such luggage
as I need will be sent over from Tunis. Are you--are you very vexed to
have a stranger to trouble your peace?'

"His intensely observant eyes were fixed upon me while he spoke. I
answered:

"'I do not think you will trouble my peace.'

"And my thought was:

"'I will help you to find the peace which you have lost.'

"Was it a presumptuous thought, Domini? Was it insolent? At the time
it seemed to me absolutely sincere, one of the best thoughts I had ever
had--a thought put into my heart by God. I didn't know then--I didn't
know."

He stopped speaking, and stood for a time quite still, looking down at
the sand, which was silver white under the moon. At last he lifted his
head and said, speaking slowly:

"It was the coming of this man that put the spark to that torch. It was
he who woke up in me the half of myself which, unsuspected by me, had
been slumbering through all my life, slumbering and gathering strength
in slumber--as the body does--gathering a strength that was tremendous,
that was to overmaster the whole of me, that was to make of me one mad
impulse. He woke up in me the body and the body was to take possession
of the soul. I wonder--can I make you feel why this man was able to
affect me thus? Can I make you know this man?

"He was a man full of secret violence, violence of the mind and violence
of the body, a volcanic man. He was English--he said so--but there must
have been blood that was not English in his veins. When I was with him
I felt as if I was with fire. There was the restlessness of fire in him.
There was the intensity of fire. He could be reserved. He could appear
to be cold. But always I was conscious that if there was stone without
there was scorching heat within. He was watchful of himself and of
everyone with whom he came into the slightest contact. He was very
clever. He had an immense amount of personal charm, I think, at any
rate for me. He was very human, passionately interested in humanity.
He was--and this was specially part of him, a dominant trait--he was
savagely, yes, savagely, eager to be happy, and when