Knowles sat, peering at Holmes over his paper, watching the languid breath that showed how deep the hurt had been, the maimed body, the face outwardly cool, watchful, reticent as before. He fancied the slough of disappointment into which God had crushed the soul of this man: would he struggle out? Would he take Miss Herne as the first step in his stairway, or be content to be flung down in vigorous manhood to the depth of impotent poverty? He could not tell if the quiet on Holmes's face were stolid defiance or submission: the dumb kings might have looked thus beneath the feet of Pharaoh. When he walked over the floor, too, weak as he was, it was with the old iron tread. He asked Knowles presently what business he had gone into. "My old hobby in an humble way,--the House of Refuge." They both laughed. "Yes, it is true. The janitor points me out to visitors as 'under-superintendent, a philanthropist in decayed circumstances.' Perhaps it is my life-work,"--growing sad and earnest. "If you can inoculate these infant beggars and thieves with your theory, it will be practice when you are dead." "I think that," said Knowles, gravely, his eye kindling,--"I think that." "As thankless a task as that of Moses," said the other, watching him curiously. "For _you_ will not see the pleasant land,--_you_ will not go over." The old man's flabby face darkened. "I know," he said. He glanced involuntarily out at the blue, and the clear-shining, eternal stars. If he could but believe in the To-Morrow! "I suppose," he said, after a while, cheerfully, "I must content myself with Lois's creed, here,--'It'll come right some time.'" Lois looked up from the saucepan she was stirring, her face growing quite red, nodding emphatically some half-dozen times. "Do you find your fallow field easily worked?" Knowles fidgeted uneasily. "No. Fact is, I'm beginning to think there's a good deal of an obstacle in blood. I find difficulty, much difficulty, Sir, in giving the youngest child true ideas of absolute freedom and unselfish heroism." "You teach them by reason alone?" said Holmes, gravely. "Well,--of course,--that is the true theory; but I--I find it necessary to have them whipped, Mr. Holmes." Holmes stooped suddenly to pat Tiger, hiding a furtive smile. The old man went on, anxiously,-- "Old Mr. Howth says that is the end of all self-governments: from anarchy to despotism, he says. Old people are apt to be set in their ways, you know. Honestly, we do not find unlimited freedom answer in the House. I hope much from a woman's assistance: I have destined her for this work always: she has great latent power of sympathy and endurance, such as can bring the Christian teaching home to these wretches." "The Christian?" said Holmes.