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an end now, without hope of salvation,--crawling out of his cellar in dumb amazement, when the sun rose as usual the next morning. Knowles sat, peering at Holmes over his paper, watching the languid breath that showed how deep the hurt had been, the maimed body, the face outwardly cool, watchful, reticent as before. He fancied the slough of disappointment into which God had crushed the soul of this man: would he struggle out? Would he take Miss Herne as the first step in his stair-way, or be content to be flung down in vigorous manhood to the depth of impotent poverty? He could not tell if the quiet on Holmes's face were stolid defiance or submission: the dumb kings might have looked thus beneath the feet of Pharaoh. When he walked over the floor, too, weak as he was it was with the old iron tread. He asked Knowles presently what business he had gone into. "My old hobby in an humble way,--the House of Refuge." They both laughed. "Yes, it is true. The janitor points me out to visitors as 'under-superintendent, a philanthropist in decayed circumstances.' Perhaps it is my life-work,"--growing sad and earnest. "If you can inoculate these infant beggars and thieves with your theory, it will be practice when you are dead." "I think that," said Knowles, gravely, his eye kindling,--"I think that." "As thankless a task as that of Moses," said the other, watching him curiously. "For YOU will not see the pleasant land,--YOU will not go over." The old man's flabby face darkened. "I know," he said. He glanced involuntarily out at the blue, and the clear-shining, eternal stars. "I suppose," he said, after a while, cheerfully, "I must content myself with Lois's creed, here,--'It'll come right some time.'" Lois looked up from the saucepan she was stirring, her face growing quite red, nodding emphatically some half-dozen times. "After all," said Holmes, kindly, "this chance may have forced you on the true road to success for your new system of Sociology. Only untainted natures could be fitted for self-government. Do you find the fallow field easily worked?" Knowles fidgeted uneasily. "No. Fact is, I'm beginning to think there 's a good deal of an obstacle in blood. I find difficulty, much difficulty, Sir, in giving to the youngest child true ideas of absolute freedom, and unselfish heroism." "You teach them these by reason alone?" said Holmes, gravely. "Well,--of course,--that is the tr
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