And Beaumont went into the slums, and their teaching sank deep into his soul. And in his goings he met time after time that sweet and winsome maiden whom he had first seen, years ago, in circumstances how different, in his office in Huddersfield—Gertrude Fairfax, Sister Gertrude. He saw her move, a ministering angel, among the foul purlieus, the noxious dens, speaking to Women from whose touch Respectability plucked its skirts, saw her indeed touch pitch without being defiled, a serene and wholesome presence before which sin slunk abashed away, and e’en the drunkard forbore to curse. And seeing her thus almost daily, old memories died away, the carking bitterness left his heart, and it was filled again with the image of a woman whom to love was a liberal education and a holy cult in one. The last scene of this story shall not open under the fogs nor ’mid the slums of hideous London. Come with me, gentle reader, to that goodly mansion by Stafford town, where dwell Mistress Jane Fairfax and her niece Gertrude. It is the month of leafy June, the skies are blue o’erhead, the air sweet and soft and warm, and the garden of Cromwell House is rich in verdure and in bloom, and redolent of the choicest perfumes distilled by that cunningest of all alchemists—Dame Nature. There is a bower there with rustic seat, a bower all garlanded with roses sweetly breathing, with clematis and wild convolvulus, and a purling brook alive with darting troutlet babbles by. And there are seated side by side the heroine of this story and Edward Beaumont. “I have something to give you, Mr. Beaumont, that I think belongs to you. Let me first tell you how it came to my hands. You had a clerk, had you not, called Barnes?” “I had.” “Well, he came to a sad end, poor fellow. Drifted to London, took to evil courses, and died in great straits. I was by his bed when the end drew near. He remembered my being at your office, when you defended Pat Sullivan. He had tried to find you. He confessed he had abstracted this paper from your office, thinking he might make money by it, if a reward were offered for its recovery. I promised if ever I met you to restore it to you, and the man seemed easier for the promise.” Beaumont wondering opened the document she handed to him. “By Jove!” he cried, “the missing valuer’s certificate for Midgley’s mortgage. Why, I’ve searched high and low for this. What would I not have given for this precious bit of paper that night in Stafford Town Hall when I got that awful telegram. You were there, you tell me. If I’d only had this then! But it’s better as it is, much better. Don’t you think God schemes for us better than we can scheme for ourselves? A man need have long visions to scan the ways of God.” “I don’t think, I know. But why do you ask that question just now?”