"It is that we shall be friends--friends." Baird laid his hand on the man's gaunt shoulder with a nervous grasp as he spoke, and his voice was unsteady. "I have never had a friend," answered Latimer, monotonously; "I should scarcely know what to do with one." "Then it is time you had one," Baird replied. "And I may have something to offer you. There may be something in--in my feeling which may be worth your having." He held out his hand. Latimer looked at it for a second, then at him, his sallow face flushing darkly. "You are offering me a good deal," he said, "I scarcely know why--myself." "But you don't take my hand, Latimer," Baird said; and the words were spoken with a faint loss of colour. Latimer took it, flushing more darkly still. "What have I to offer in return?" he said. "I have nothing. You had better think again. I should only be a kind of shadow on your life." "I want nothing in return--nothing," Baird said. "I don't even ask feeling from you. Be a shadow on my life, if you will. Why should I have no shadows? Why should all go smoothly with me, while others----" He paused, checking his vehemence as if he had suddenly recognised it. "Let us be friends," he said. CHAPTER XV The respectable portion of the population of Janway's Mills believed in church-going and on Sunday-school attendance--in fact, the most entirely respectable believed that such persons as neglected these duties were preparing themselves for damnation. They were a quiet, simple, and unintellectual people. Such of them as occasionally read books knew nothing of any literature which was not religious. The stories they had followed through certain inexpensive periodicals were of the order which describes the gradual elevation of the worldly-minded or depraved to the plane of church-going and Sunday-school. Their few novels made it their _motif_ to prove that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Any hero or heroine of wealth who found peace of mind and married happily, only attained these objects through the assistance of some noble though humble unsecular person whose example and instruction led them to adopt unsecular views. The point of view of Janway's Mills was narrow and far from charitable when it was respectable; its point of view, when it was not respectable, was desperate. Even sinners, at Janway's Mills, were primitive and limited in outlook. They did not excuse themselves with specious argument for their crimes of neglecting church-going, using bad language, hanging about bar-rooms, and loose living. They were not brilliant wrongdoers and made no attempt at defending themselves or pretending that they did not know they were going to perdition. The New England mind is not broad or versatile, and, having begun life in a Puritan atmosphere, it is not quick to escape its influence. Society at the Mills recognised no social distinction which was not founded upon the