'I am--I am. You have said it. I should not myself have dared to say it. But I am.' 'No one can doubt it who has read that letter. Be my Master--too--as well as the Master of--of all these people who write to you.' 'Be your Master?' He blushed like a boy. 'Could I desire anything better?' 'My Father and my Master,' she added with a little change of colour. Girls take fright very easily, and perhaps this old gentleman might interpret the invitation--well--into something other than was meant. 'Yes--yes.' He held out his hand. She took it in her own--both her own soft hands, and bowed her head--her comely head--over it. 'I came to-day thinking only'--Oh, Delilah!--'to thank you for your great and generous and noble words, which have put fresh heart into me. And now that I have thanked you, I am emboldened to ask a favour----' 'Anything, anything.' 'You will be my Master--you will teach me. Let me, in return, relieve you of this work.' She laid her hand on the pile of letters. 'Let me answer them for you. Let me be your Private Secretary. I have nothing to do. Let me work for you.' She looked into his face with the sweetest eyes and the most winning smile, and her voice warmed the old man's ear like soft music. Ah, Circe!--'Now that I have seen you--let me be your disciple, your most humble disciple, and'--Ah, Siren!--'let me be more, Edmund Gray--I cannot say Mr. Gray--let me be more, Edmund Gray.' She laid her hand, her soft-gloved, dainty, delicate hand, upon his, and it produced the effect of an electric battery gently handled. 'Let me be your Secretary.' It was ten o'clock before Elsie reached home that evening, and she refused to tell them, even her own brother and her lover, where she had been or how she had spent her evening. CHAPTER XXII MASTER AND DISCIPLE It was Sunday afternoon in Gray's Inn. The new Disciple sat at the feet of the Master, her Gamaliel: one does not know exactly the attitude adopted by a young Rabbi of old, but in this case the disciple sat in a low chair, her hands folded in her lap, curiously and earnestly watching the Master as he walked up and down the room preaching and teaching. 'Master,' she asked, 'have you always preached and held these doctrines?' 'Not always. There was a time when I dwelt in darkness--like the rest of the world.' 'How did you learn these things? By reading books?' 'No. I discovered them. I worked them out for myself by logic, by reason, and by observation. Everything good and true must be discovered by a man for himself.' 'What did you believe in that old time? Was it, with the rest of the world, the sacredness of Property?'