st it would have needs been brave and cool. The torrent of
her passion swept him like a straw.

'I beg your pardon,' he stammered; 'I beg your pardon with all my heart
and soul.'

'Go!' she said.

He obeyed her, and the episode of Norah MacMulty came to a close.

'Paul,' said the Solitary, waking for a moment from the dream in which
these old things acted themselves again before him, 'you were always a
fool, but the folly of that time was better than to-day's.'

CHAPTER VI

Ralston was on the scene--Ralston in ripe middle age, massive and short
of stature, with a square head and a billowy, sable-silvered head of
hair; full lips, richly shadowed by his beard; an eye which twinkled
like some bland star of humour at one minute and pierced like a gimlet
at the next; a manner suavely dogged, jovially wilful, calmly hectoring,
winning as the wiles of a child; a voice of husky sweetness, like a
fog-bound clarion at times; a learning which, if it embraced nothing
wholly, had squeezed some spot of vital juice out of well-nigh
everything; wise, loquacious, masterful, _bon-vivant_; the most perfect
talker of his day in England; half parson and half journalist; loyal to
the bone; courageous to the bone; not an originating man, but original;
a receiver, and, through his own personality, a transmitter of great
thoughts to the masses; a fighting theologian; a fighting politician; a
howling scoff to orthodoxy; a flying flag and peal of trumpet and tuck
of drum to freedom everywhere. This was Ralston.

What should bring Paul from the inky apron, and the dusty type-cases,
and the battered old founts of metal, and the worm-eaten old founts of
wood, and the slattern bankrupt office into the society of such a man as
this?

The Exile dreamed his dream, and a year was gone in a breath.

The Armstrong household was asleep. It was one o'clock--noon of the
slumberous hours. Paul slipped downstairs in his stocking-feet, struck
a match, lit the kitchen gas, and drew on his boots. Then back came the
creaking bolts of the door which led to the garden. Out went the gas,
and Paul, matchbox in hand, sped stealthily to the office, the summer
dews falling and the weeds smelling sweet. The battered padlock on the
staple of the door had been a pure pretence for years past. It locked
and opened as well without the aid of a key as with it Paul lifted the
outer edge of the door in both hands and swung it back cautiously, to
avoid the shriek i