back of your mind you know that discovery is inevitable before very long. Yet you put the thought away, and try and persuade yourself that everything will come right somehow, though you have no idea how. And during the last fortnight the process of deterioration has been more and more rapid. You have been drinking heavily to deaden your conscience and alleviate your alarm. You have known the end is near. Is not all this the truth?" The tears were rolling down the weak, young face. The flaccid mouth quivered; the neck was bowed. "All this, sir," said the young man--"all this is true." "A broken and contrite heart," the Teacher answered, "are not despised of God. By his great mercy I have been sent to you to save you. Restore the money you have stolen, but do far more. Turn from darkness; seek light. Come to Jesus Christ. Boy, you have heard of what is known as the 'Great Refusal'; you know how the young man with great possessions could not, and would not, give them up to follow the Son of God? But you deny Jesus for a pot of beer! You give up your hope of eternal life to come and the peace of God in this wicked world for nothing--nothing at all? Now come with me to my house in Bloomsbury, my house of godly men. There you shall pray and repent, and from there you shall go home cleansed and purged of your sin, filled with the Holy Spirit, ready and anxious to lead a new life, walking from henceforth in Christ Jesus." They went out of the place together. The boy never cast a backward glance at his inamorata of a few minutes ago. He followed the Teacher in blind obedience. He was as one stunned. They came into the big old-fashioned square where was the house which Sir Thomas Ducaine had given to Joseph and his brethren. The windows were all lighted up, and there was a small crowd lingering in front of the door. "They are all praying within," Joseph said. "To-morrow we are to go down into the worst places of the East End. A party of great people are coming with us. We have persuaded them to come, in order that they may see for themselves what these parts of London really are like." He spoke quietly, and in a purely conversational tone, as if to an equal. He knew well what the poor lad who walked so humbly by his side was suffering. He knew of the remorse and shame, but also of the hope, which were pouring into the young man's heart. And he knew also that all this was but a preparation for what was to come--that there must, indeed, be a final agony of surrender, an absolute and utter "giving-in" to Jesus. So, as they walked across the square, he tried to calm his captive's nerves by a quiet recital of the great and hopeful things that they were to do on the morrow. Yet even to Joseph it was not then given to know what things the morrow would bring forth. CHAPTER XX MURDER AND SUDDEN DEATH