Little wonder that Annie appeared an angel of light when she stood between him and such a future. The ugliest hag would have been glorified and loved in the same position. But when she did this with her own peculiar grace and tact, as a matter of justice, his gratitude and admiration knew no bounds. He was in a fair way to become an idolater and worship the country girl he had once sneered at, as no pictured Madonna was ever revered even in superstitious Italy. Besides placing him under personal obligation, she had, by tests certain and terrible, proved herself true and strong in a world that he believed to be, in the main, utterly false at heart. It is one of our most natural instincts to trust and lean upon something, and Annie Walton seemed one whose friendship he could value above life. He did not even then realize, in his glad sense of relief, that in escaping the charge of cowardice he fell upon the other horn of the dilemma, namely, lack of principle--that the best explanation of his conduct admitted that he was indifferent to right and wrong, and even to the most serious crime against society, so long as he was not personally and immediately injured. He had acted on the selfish creed that a man is a fool who puts himself to serious trouble to serve the public. The fact that he did not even dream that Annie would make the noble stand she did proves how far selfishness can take a man out of his true course when he throws overboard compass and chart and lets himself drift. But in the world's code (which was his) cowardice is the one deadly sin. His lack of anything like Christian principle was a familiar fact to him, and did not hurt him among those with whom he associated.