"It would have been easy enough for Him to have prevented all this trouble! I can see no help in the story of the last few years. Everything has gone against me. In the beginning I borrowed some money--of course, it's a case of money--to help a friend who was in a tight fix. That was innocent enough. But when the time came round I could not repay the debt, and in my position it was fatally easy to help myself to what I needed. I called it just another loan. I was sure of repaying it before anything was discovered, but again it was impossible, for there were calls upon me which I had not expected. If I had been short in my accounts I should have lost my situation, and it was a handsome one for a man of my age. You won't understand the details, but I began to speculate, to put off the evil hour, always hoping for a _coup_ which would put everything right; but it never came. I was not helped, you see! Things went from bad to worse, until I could go on no longer. Then in despair I confessed the whole story to my friend--he is a near relation also, but that is by the way. He would not allow the family name to be disgraced; he paid up all that was due, and saved me the shame of prosecution, but even he could do no more. I am sent about my business--a felon in deed, though not in name. Incidentally, too, he is ruined. He must give up his house, remove his children to cheap schools, live in poverty instead of ease. Naturally enough he will have no more to do with me. There is not a soul on earth who would regret me if I passed out of being to-night." There was a long silence while the strangely-matched couple wended their way slowly along the bisecting roads which lead from Kensington High Street to Bayswater Road. The fog had slightly lessened by this time, but it was still too dense to show anything but a dim outline of passers-by, and the face of the stranger was but a blur against the darkness to Betty's searching eyes. Her heart was beating rapidly; she was praying with a whole-hearted earnestness unknown to her usual morning and evening supplications--praying to be guided to say the right thing to save this man's soul from despair. At last-- "You say you were not helped," she began timidly; "but if your speculations had succeeded as you hoped, it might not have been really good for you. It would have been easier, of course, but if all had gone smoothly you might have been tempted to do the same thing another time. Perhaps God knew that, and that there was no way of bringing you back to Himself except through trouble." The stranger laughed again--his hard, mirthless little laugh. "I am afraid I can hardly believe in that theory. I can see no reason for believing that my doings are the slightest interest to Him, or that He cares in the least what becomes of me."