She gave a little cry as she shuddered. He had at last succeeded in startling her. She had put up her hands before her face. He looked at her quickly and came in front of her. “Forgive me, Agnes,” he said in an agitated voice. “Forgive me; I have frightened you--horrified you. I have been so long among savages; but I feel that I could kill that wretch, and be doing no more than the will of Heaven. I feel that I could kill all that bear his accursed name, and yet be conscious of doing no evil. My brother--ah, if you knew how I have been supported through these long dismal years by thinking of him--by the thought of the pleasure it would give him to see me again! It was chiefly during that eight months which I spent alone in the forests that I thought about him. What a life I led! I had previously lived the life of a savage, but in the forest I had to live as a wild beast. The terrible vigilance I needed to exercise--it was a war to the knife against all the wild things with fangs and tusks and claws. It was the Bottomless Pit; but the hope of returning to him made me continue the fight when I had made up my mind to fling away my knife and to await the end, whether it came by a snake, a wild elephant, or a lion. I thought of him daily and nightly; and now when I come home I find And I cannot kill the man who made my hour of triumph my hour of bitterness! There I go, raving again. Forgive me--forgive me, and tell me about him. You saw him on that day, Agnes.” For the first time she spoke. “Yes, I saw him,” she said. “He was just the same as when, you saw him last. He was not the man to change, nor was he the man to expect that others would change.” He looked at her with something of a puzzled expression on his face. “Change? Change? You mean that he--I don't quite know what you mean, Agnes. Change?” “He never changed in his belief in you. When people took it for granted that you were dead--years ago--how many years ago?--he believed that you were alive--that you would one day return. He believed that and never changed in his faith. I believed it too.” “And that is the man whose life was taken by a ruffian who remains alive to-day!” He had sprung to his feet once more, and was speaking in a voice tremulous with passion. He had ignored her reference to herself and her changeless faith. “He was a man whose soul was full of mercy,” she said. “Every one here has heard of his many acts of mercy. There was no one too black for him to pardon. The merciful are those whom Christ pronounced blessed.” “It is not possible that you have set yourself to exculpate the murderer,” he cried. “It is not for me to exculpate him,” she replied. “But I know that our God is a God of mercy. Are you not a living witness to that? Were not you spared when every one of your company was lost?”