ian preachers, it is that natural
beauty is powerless to cleanse the heart of what you call sin."

"But surely a man is affected by his circumstances," interposed Herbert
Briarfield.

"Is not nature always laughing at us?" said Ricordo. "We dream our
little dreams, make our little plans, and live in a fool's paradise.
Let people be surrounded by beautiful things, we say; let them have
works of art, fine pictures, music; let them live in the sunshine, and
behold the beauties of nature, then they will live beautiful lives. I
have heard your moral reformers preach this--this nonsense. Well, what
happens? Is the morality of your west of London any better than the
east? Ah, but I tell you I have lived in the most beautiful places on
earth, but they have been hell all the same. Can you cure a cancer by
placing a bunch of flowers in the room of your patient?"

"Then what is your antidote--your gospel?" asked Olive.

"Is there the one or the other?" asked Ricordo.

The party went on quietly for a few minutes. Ricordo seemed to be
thinking deeply; now and then he lifted his eyes for a passing glance at
his companions.

Again Olive Castlemaine thought of Leicester. Memories of those days
which he spent at The Beeches came rushing back to her. She thought of
the happiness which was hers, when she hoped and prayed that she should
be the means whereby the man she loved should be brought to faith--to
God. In some subtle way which she could not understand, the stranger
made him real, ay, and more, he made her feel that she had been harsh
and unfair to the man whose wife she had promised to be. After all, was
it not her pride he had wounded? Moreover, Ricordo had interested her in
himself, in a way that she had been interested in no other man for a
long time. It was not so much because of what he said. Rather, it lay in
the fascination of the man himself. He made such as Herbert Briarfield
seem small and commonplace. She felt sure that he had lived in a realm
of thought and being to which the young squire was a stranger.

The essence of interest is mystery. It is rather in the things not seen,
than in the things seen, that fascination lies. We are for ever longing
to explore new regions, to tread ground hitherto untrodden. The secret
chamber of a house is of infinitely more interest than those chambers
which are open to inspection; that is why we care little about those
people in whose life there is no secret chamber of thought