ilson managed to get an
invitation to preach at the mission on the following Sunday. He
arrived on Friday, and then, for the first time, Samuel began to
suspect the true state of affairs. On Saturday evening Miss Blake and
her lover were sitting together in a little summer-house in the garden,
Samuel had watched them enter and then, stealthily as a cat, had crept
up to the trellis, and taken a position where he could hear every word
spoken. What he heard left no room for any doubt as to the true state
of affairs. At first he felt as if stunned by the shock, the very force
of the blow precluding suffering for the time being. The mention of his
own name brought him to himself, and every word of the conversation
that followed burned itself into his brain.

"What a strange character that Samuel Gozani is," said Mr. Wilson; "I
have sometimes thought him slightly mad."

"So have I," replied the girl, and she then gave a rapid sketch of
Samuel's career at the mission.

"Has it never struck you that he may have presumed to fall in love with
you?"

"I do not like to speak about such a thing, but it has; and for some
time back I have hardly been able to bear his presence. I shudder
whenever he comes near me."

"I think it is such a mistake to let these fellows think they can be on
an equality with us," said Mr. Wilson, after a pause; "it always leads
to unpleasantness. The idea of his presuming even to think of you in
that way."

"I often recall his asking me such a strange question one night last
year. He asked if I thought all men, black and white, were equal, It
was not so much the question, as his manner of putting it, that struck
me as being strange."

"And what did you say in reply?"

"Oh, I said that before God all men were equal. He then asked whether I
thought one who was white could ever look on a black man as really his
equal. I did not like to say what I truly thought, and felt, so I made
an evasive answer."

"I know old Schultz and his school teach a lot of nonsense on that
point," said Mr. Wilson, scornfully, "although none of them truly
believe what they say. The equality idea is quite an exploded one, and
the black savage, superficially civilised, is no more the equal of the
European, than a Basuto pony is equal to a thoroughbred horse. But I
hope you will keep that fellow in his place!"

"Yes, of course I will. But I pity him nevertheless."

"Do you? I cannot say that I do. But after all, he is