He carried away with him the look of her face--that filled his heart with sunlight. In the hansom, into which he bundled his unkempt companion, if only he had known enough Russian, he would have expressed gratitude to him. Beggar or maniac, or whatever he was, had he not been the means of procuring for George Brand that long-coveted, long-dreamed-of smile of welcome? CHAPTER XIV. A RUSSIAN EPISODE. "Is that the way you answer an appeal for help?" With that gentle protest still lingering in his ear, he was not inclined to be hard on this unfortunate wretch who was in the cab with him; and yet at the same time he was resolved to prevent any repetition of the scene he had just witnessed. At the last he discovered that the man had picked up in his wanderings a little German. His own German was not first-rate; it was fluent, forcible, and accurate enough, so far as hotels and railway-stations were concerned; elsewhere it had a tendency to halt, blunder, and double back on itself. But, at all events, he managed to convey to his companion the distinct intimation that any further troubling of that young lady would only procure for him broken head. The dull, stupid, savage-looking face betrayed no sign of intelligence. He repeated the warning again and again; and at last, at the phrase "that young lady," the dazed small eyes lit up somewhat, and the man clasped his hands. "Ein Engel!" he said, apparently to himself. "Ein Engel--ein Engel! Ach Gott--wie schon--wie gemuthlich!" "Yes, yes, yes," Brand said, "that is all very well; but one is not permitted to annoy angels--to trouble them in the street. Do you understand that that means punishment--one must be punished--if one returns to the house of that young lady? Do you understand?" The man regarded him with the small, deep-set eyes again sunk into apathy. "Ihr Diener, Herr," said he, submissively. "You understand you are not to go back to the house of the young lady?" "Ihr Diener, Herr." There was nothing to be got out of him, or into him; so Brand waited until he should get help of Heinrich Reitzei, Lind's _locum tenens_. Reitzei was in the chambers--at Lind's table, in fact. He was a man of about twenty-eight or thirty, slim and dark, with a perfectly pallid face, a small black mustache carefully waxed, and an affectedly courteous smile. He wore a _pince-nez_; was fond of slang, to show his familiarity with English; and aimed at an English manner, too. He seemed bored. He regarded this man whom Brand introduced to him without surprise, with indifference. "Hear what this fellow has to say," Brand said, "will you? and give him distinctly to understand that if he tries again to see Miss Lind, I will break his head for him. What idiot could have given him Lind's private address?"