"Well, I will urge no more. Your sin, whatever it be, rests between you and the Judge of sinners. You say the law has no hold over you?" "I said I was not afraid of the law." "Therefore, it must have been a moral, rather than a legal crime, if crime it was." And again I had to bear that searching look, so dreadful because it was so eager and kind. "On my soul, Doctor Urquhart, I believe you to be entirely innocent." "Sir," I cried out, and stopped; then asked him "if he did not believe it possible for a man to have sinned and yet repented?" Mr. Thorley started back--so greatly shocked that I perceived at once what an implication I had made. But it was too late now; nor, perhaps, would I have had it otherwise. "As a clergyman--I--I--" He paused. "If a man sin a sin which is not unto death,--You know the rest. And there is a sin which is unto death; I do not say that he shall pray for it? But never that we shall _not_ pray for it." And falling down on his knees beside me, the old chaplain repeated in a broken voice:--"_Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions; according to thy mercy, think thou upon me, O Lord, for thy goodness._' Not ours, which is but filthy rags; for _Thy_ goodness, through Jesus Christ, O Lord." "Amen." Mr. Thorley rose, took the chair I gave him, and we sat silent. Presently he asked me if I had any plans? Had I considered what exceeding difficulty I should find in establishing myself anywhere professionally, after what had happened this day? I said, I was fully aware that, so far as my future prospects were concerned, I was a ruined man. "And yet you take it so calmly?" "Ay." "Doctor," said he, after again watching me, "you must either be innocent, or your error must have been caused by strong temptation, and long ago retrieved. I will never believe but that you are now as honourable and worthy a man as any living." "Thank you." An uncontrollable weakness came over me; Mr. Thorley, too, was much affected. "I'll tell you what it is, my dear fellow," said he, as he wrung my hand, "you must start afresh in some other part of the world. You are no older than my son-in-law was when he married and went to Canada, in your own profession too. By the way, I have an idea." The idea was worthy of this excellent man, and of his behaviour to me. He explained that his son-in-law, a physician in good practice, wanted a partner--some one from the old country, if possible. "If you went out, with an introduction from me, he would be sure to like you, and all might be settled in no time. Besides, you Scotch hang together so--my son-in-law is a Fife man--and did you not say you were born or educated at St. Andrews? The very thing!" And he urged me to start by next Saturday's American mail.