Only the woman in black remained, and she now came timidly up to the Teacher. "Sir," she said, in a thin but clear and educated voice--"sir, I should like to speak with you, if I may." "My friend," he answered. "I was waiting for you. Come within the house." He led the woman into a small room on the left-hand side of the hall--an uncarpeted room, with nothing but a few chairs, a big table covered with papers, and a purring gas-stove upon the hearth. At the Teacher's invitation the woman sat down, and revealed a thin, anxious face and eyes that seemed perpetually trembling upon the brink of tears. "It is very kind of you to see me, sir," she said, "I never expected that I should have such good fortune. But I have read about you in the papers--that you go about doing good, just as our dear Lord did, and something within me moved me to seek you out, even if it were only just to look at you. For I am very unhappy, sir, and I have no one to confide in, no one whom I can ask about my trouble or obtain advice from." "Tell me all about it," Joseph said gently. "When I stood at the door and looked at the people I felt in my heart that they were there out of idle curiosity. God in His wisdom has given me power to know these things. But something came straight from you to me that made me aware that you needed me. Tell me everything." "It's about my son, sir," the woman said, not noticing the slight start that Joseph gave and the new light that came into his eyes. "I am a widow with one son. He is just twenty, and is employed as a clerk in a City House. But he is going wrong, sir. I can read the signs easily. He stays out late at night, he seems to be losing his love for me, and is impatient of anything I say to him. And more than once he has come home intoxicated lately. And in his room I have found programmes of the performances at music-halls and such places. "I do not pry about, sir, nor am I foolishly severe and hard. Young men must have their amusements, and they must have their secrets, I suppose. I do not expect Charlie to tell me everything. And he only earns thirty shillings a week, part of which he gives to me for his board and lodging. He cannot possibly afford these amusements. "I have a terrible fear that never leaves me that he has not been honest, that he must have been taking other people's money, and that he will be ruined. I have prayed and prayed, sir, but it really seems as if prayer is of no use, though, of course, I keep on." "Don't say that," Joseph answered. "Prayer is still the greatest force in the world, however despondent we may become at times. But your prayers have been answered. Charlie is saved!" The weeping mother gave a sudden cry, half of joy, half of incredulity. "But, sir," she stammered, "how can you know that? Oh, if only it could be true!"