"Of course you don't!" returned Laronde, with something of the old cynicism in his tone. "You Englishmen are always so cock-sure--as you express it--of success that you make no provision for defeat or failure. It may seem very heroic, but it is mere pride and folly. Now, if you will take a real friend's advice, you will go out to-morrow with the determination to curb yourself and refrain from taking any notice whatever of this girl, whether she turns out to be your daughter or not, and leave her to work out her plan, for you may be quite sure she has some end in view. Just consider what would be the consequence of your giving way to your feelings and embracing her. You would by so doing expose her disguise, cause her to be taken up and sent to the harem of some one of the notables, and get heavier irons put on yourself, besides another touch, perhaps, of the bastinado. Be wise, and consider well what you intend to do." "Thank you, friend, for your warning. It is well timed. If you had not spoken I would certainly have gone forth to-morrow unprepared." "But what is your preparation? What will you do?" persisted the Frenchman. "What _can_ I do?" replied Sommers. "Have you not just shown me that I am utterly helpless? In such a case there is only one course left-- namely, to go to Him who can succour the helpless. I will ask counsel of God. The pride you have referred to I admit, though it is by no means confined to my own countrymen! Too long have I given way to it, and acted independently of my Maker. Perhaps God sent me here to convince me of my sin and helplessness." "There is no God. I do not believe in a God," said Laronde calmly. "Why not?" asked Sommers, in surprise. "Because," replied Laronde bitterly, "if there was a God He could not stand by and see me suffering such prolonged and awful misery." "If, instead of misery, you had been placed during the last twelve years in supreme felicity, would you have believed in a God?" asked Sommers. Laronde was silent. He saw that the reason which he had given for disbelief was untenable, and he was too straightforward to quibble about it. "I don't know," he said at last angrily. "No doubt there are hundreds of men in happy and favourable circumstances who say, as I do, that they don't believe in a God. I don't know. All I do know is that I am supremely miserable!" "Now you are reasonable," returned the merchant, "for you talk of what you do know, and you admit that in regard to God you `don't know,' but you began by stating that `there is no God.' Ah, my friend, I sympathise with you in your terrible sorrow, even as you have sympathised with me in mine, but don't let us give way to despair and cast the only Refuge that remains to us behind our backs. I will not ask you to join me in praying to One, in whom you say you do not believe, but I will pray _for_ you."