It was Sidney Barslow's opportunity; he was well fitted to use the chance that circumstances gave him. The strong will which enabled him to put a curb on his own inclinations, so soon as he had an adequate motive, made him a man to turn to in distress. His past indulgences, in so far as they were known or conjectured, themselves gave him authority. He spoke of what he knew, of what he had experienced and overcome. Seeing him, the old father could not deny that young men might pass through a season of folly, and yet be sound at heart and able to steady themselves after a little while. Raymond could not call him a Puritan or an ignoramus, nor accuse him of not understanding the temptations which beset his own path. Sidney was honest in his efforts. He felt a genuine remorse for having set young Raymond's feet on the primrose path along which they now raced at such dangerous speed. About his own little excursions along the same track he felt no such pangs of conscience; fellows were different; some could pull up when they liked; he could. It seemed that Raymond could not; therefore he repented of having started Raymond at all, and recognised a duty laid on himself of stopping him if possible. And the same motives which had enabled him to forsake the dangerous path urged him to turn Raymond also from it. Marie's approval had been his mark in the one case; in the other it was her gratitude; in both her favour. The pleasure he derived from seeing her trust him and lean on him was something quite new in his life and appealed strongly to his courageous and masculine temper. He would not fail her, any more than he had failed her brother in his need. And his reward? He knew very well what he wanted--if only he could get it. He did not deal in doubts and hesitations. He had not sacrificed his indulgences without being quite sure of what he wanted in exchange. His mind, if primitive and unrefined, was direct and bold. His emotions were of the same simple and powerful type. Courting a girl was to him no matter of dreaming, romancing, idealising, fearing, palpitating. It was just a man seeking the mate that pleased him. Marie was in no mood to be courted yet; her dream was too recently dispelled, and her steady nature could not leap to sudden change. But her eyes were on his strong qualities again; she looked at him less through Arthur Lisle's spectacles; that side of her which liked him could now assert itself. She turned to his aid readily, and, with her shrewd calculation seconding the impulse of friendship, made his company seem as welcome for its own sake as for the services it promised. "You always bring a breath of comfort with you, Sidney," she told him gratefully.