"Poor girl!" thought the schoolmaster. "Poor, poor girl!" He felt a warm, melting sensation in the neighborhood of his breastbone; and with an impulsiveness altogether unusual to him he leaned forward and tried to lay his hand on her. He was still only half awake and was wholly under the impulse to bring comfort to one so wretched. The train lurched as it passed over a point, and, instead of her hand, he grasped her knee. At once she sprang forward and slapped his face. Stung, indignant, shocked, but still dominated by his impulse, urged by it to insist on its expression, he seized her by the wrists and tried to force her back into her seat and began to address her: "My poor child! Something in you, in your eyes, has touched me. I do not know if I can. . . . Please sit down and listen to me." "Nasty old beast!" said the girl. "I must protest," replied Old Mole, "the innocence of my motives." He still gripped her by the wrists. "Seeing you as I did, so unnerved, so----" The train slowed down and stopped, but he did not notice it. He was absolutely absorbed in his purpose--to succor this young woman in distress and to show her the injustice of her suspicions. She by this time was almost beside herself with anger and fright, and she had struggled so violently--for he had no notion of the force with which he held her--that her hair had tumbled down behind and she had torn the seam of her sleeve and put her foot through a flounce in her petticoat. He was thoroughly roused now, and shouted: "You shall listen to me----" "Let me go! Let me go!" screamed the girl. The train had stopped opposite a train going in the other direction. The door of the compartment was opened suddenly, and Beenham found himself picked up and flung into the far corner. Over him towered an immense form clad in parson's clothes--the very type of vengeful muscular Christianity. In the corner the girl had subsided into hysterical sobs. The parson questioned her. "Do you know this man?" "No . . . no, sir." "Never seen him before?" "Never, sir. He--he set on me." "Do you prefer a charge against him?" "Yes, sir." Beenham could hardly hear what they said, but he was boiling with indignation. "I protest----" he said. "Silence!" shouted the parson. "But for my timely intervention Heaven knows what would have happened. . . . Silence! You and men like you are a pest to society, impervious to decency and the call of religion. . . . Fortunately there is law in the country and you shall know it."