er why I have written
this, but I felt that I must own the truth to you, and that you should
know that if in the course of my duty to the god it was my misfortune
to slay your father, I have twice saved your life, just as three times I
saved that of the Colonel Sahib, your uncle."

There was silence for some little time after Mark had finished reading.

"It is a strange story indeed," Mr. Greg said, "but it is not for us
to judge the man. He has acted according to his lights, and none can do
more. He sacrificed himself and his life solely to the service of his
god, well knowing that even were he successful, his reward would be
penance and suffering, and a life of what cannot but be misery to a
man brought up, as he has been, to consider himself of the highest and
holiest rank of the people. I think, Mark, we need neither say nor think
anything harshly of him."

"Certainly not," Mark agreed. "I can understand that according to his
view of the matter anything that stood between him and his goal was but
an obstacle to be swept aside; assuredly there was no premeditation in
the killing of my father. I have no doubt that the man was attached to
him, and that he killed him not to save his own life, but in order that
his mission might be carried out."

"Quite so, Mark; it was done in the same spirit, if I may say so, that
Abraham would have sacrificed his son at the order of his God. What
years of devotion that man has passed through! Accustomed, as you see,
to a lofty position, to the respect and veneration of those around him,
he became a servant, and performed duties that were in his opinion not
only humiliating, but polluting and destructive to his caste, and which
rendered him an outcast even among the lowest of his people. Do you not
think so, Mrs. Thorndyke?"

Millicent, who was crying quietly, looked up.

"I can only think of him as the man who twice saved Mark's life," she
said.

"I understand why you have wished to tell me this story," the Rector
went on to Mark. "You wish me to know that Arthur Bastow did not add
this to his other crimes; that he was spared from being the murderer of
your father, but from no want of will on his part; and, as we know, he
killed many others, the last but an hour or two before he put an end to
his own life; still I am glad that this terrible crime is not his. It
seemed to be so revolting and unnatural. It was the Squire's father who
had given the living to his father, and the S