The man did not cease to be a trifle bewildered. He was charged again with the same inspiring temperament which compelled him to tell her the intimate story of Rawder, and to tell it with all his valor and tenderness. Impedimenta which the months had brought to his brain and heart were whipped away now before those same wondrous, listening eyes. Memories of her had always been the fairest architecture of his thoughts, but they were as castles in cloudland, lineaments half-lost, compared to this moment, with the living glory of Noreen Cardinegh sweeping into full possession of his life. All that had been before was dulled and undesirable; even himself, the man, Routledge, with whom he had lived so much alone.... In this splendid moment of expansion, it came to him--the world’s bright answer to his long quest for the reason of being. * * * * * “Routledge-san, I have wine and tea and biscuit, and you may smoke if you like.” She drew up a little table and chair for herself. “It will be an hour before the carrier comes for my trunks, and I want you to tell me if you have seen again--our bravest man. It’s long over a year since you left him in Hong Kong.” “Miss Noreen----” “I’d rather be Noreen to you.” “Noreen, what is the force of Rawder’s bigness to you?” Routledge asked, after watching her several seconds. “He serves blindly, constantly, among the dregs, and has mercy for all men but himself!” she said intensely. “The living spirit of the Christ seems to be in him, and nothing of sex or earthly desire. I have pictured him, since you told me the story, as one pure of soul as any of the prophets or martyrs. I care not for the range of his brain when he has a human heart like that!... I wish I could say all he suggests to me, but I mean--I think he is close to God!” “Thank you,” said Routledge. “It is one of the finest things I know, to have you speak of him as ‘our bravest man’--to share him with me.... Yes, I have seen him again, and there is another story to tell, and I will tell it, as he told me: “It began with his leaving Hong Kong. He was never so weary nor so faint-hearted as on one certain day. It was about the time I was with you for an evening in Cheer Street. He declares when that night came he went out on the water-front to his work with a ‘wicked rebellion’ in his heart. A night of rain and storm. He had rescued a fallen sailor from the Chinese, and was leading him to his own lodging when he was struck from behind and trampled. ‘I’m afraid they meant to kill me,’ he divulged, and added in apology that the lives of the Chinese are so dark and desperate on the water-front. His old Minday wound was reopened, and he awoke to feel that death was very close. You see, the police had found his body in the rain. He was drifting off into unconsciousness when a vision appeared.