"It might have changed everything, or it might not," Thomassian said mournfully. "I have no power now to undo that wrong, or any of the others I have done. Friends, while I sat in silence yonder, my face turned from you all, the sins of my whole life came upon me. They swept over my head like black waters, they seemed to choke my very life out. The thought of death was terrible. I _could_ not die, and go into God's presence thus. And yet, to give up my faith would only be to add another sin, and one for which there is no pardon." "Oh, no!" Jack threw in. "That is too hard a saying." "Surely," Thomassian said, "if you go away from the light, you must remain in darkness; if you go away from the Christ, you must remain unforgiven. That was what I came to in those days of anguish. I thought I _could_ not let Christ go. I know now it was Christ that would not let me go. My brothers, all that time that I lay silent there, not joining in your prayers, your hymns, your counsel-taking, my whole heart has been one desperate cry to Him, 'Oh, Christ, forgive me! Even now, at this eleventh hour, take my spoiled life, and receive me into Thy kingdom!'" There was a silence. "Has He heard?" Kaspar asked at last. Thomassian bowed his head low, and veiled his face with both hands. "I stand among you confounded and ashamed," he said. "Because God was silent to you?" said the youth Dikran, in a pitying voice. "Because God was _not_ silent to me," Thomassian answered, removing his hands, and turning on them a face full of awe-struck gladness, "because to me--the last and least of you--to me, who had forgotten Him and sinned against Him so, even to me He has revealed Himself." "How?" asked two or three, drawing near him with looks of reverence. "How, I cannot tell you. That may no man tell, or understand, myself least of all. 'I called upon Thy name, oh Lord, out of the low dungeon. Thou drewedst near in the day that I called upon Thee; Thou saidst, Fear not.' After all, though no man may understand it, yet it is a very simple thing. I, the worst among you, have taken God at His word, and claimed His promise of forgiveness for the Lord Christ's sake. I had so much to be forgiven, there was no other way. And He has forgiven. He has done more; He has given peace, such peace as I could never dream of. I am _glad_ to die for Him now. I have no fear of man--not from the fear, but from the love of Him. Not because if I forsake Him He will forsake me, but because I know He never will forsake me, neither in life nor in death, nor in the life beyond." There was silence when he ended. At last the oldest man amongst them stretched out his hand to him and said, "Baron Thomassian, you have taught us a lesson." "You are better than the rest of us," another said impulsively.