"My friends, we have all heard. Some of us understand, because we have passed through that same dark valley as our young friend. Dare I, in all humility, remind you that a Greater than any shrank from the supreme moment, and prayed, with agonies no man may conceive of, that His bitter cup might pass from Him? I tell you, gentlemen," he cried, in a voice that rang like a trumpet, "that in doing what he has done here this evening our friend has proved himself a man among men. He has said that a hundred savage deaths appear to him less terrible than the confession he has just made. And it is a true saying. Ask your own hearts. I could prove to you that no man can answer absolutely for himself at such a moment; but I will not even argue the point. Our friend has been through the fire. He has been through God's mill. He has been hammered on God's anvil. I tell you that he is true metal. He has proved it here and now. I hold it an honour to grasp his hand and bid him God-speed." He stretched a sinewy, leather-brown hand to Blair, and the young man gripped it with a new light in his face, and the two stood facing one another. Still holding the young man's hand, the old one turned to the front again. "If you agree with me that this is the man we want for the work out there, rise in your seats." His voice had rung like a bugle-call through the outer darknesses of the earth; his name stood but little lower than God's to tens of thousands who dwelt there, and was held in reverence wherever the English language was spoken. That great audience rose to his call as if a mine had exploded beneath it. His eyes shone with the light the black men knew and loved. "Let us pray," he said; and the young man fell to his knees beside his chair and dropped his head into his hands again. CHAPTER IV A SHAMELESS THING! The night that followed that meeting at Queen's Hall was the most tempestuous time Jean Arnot ever passed through. The dramatic events of the meeting had shaken her hidden soul out of its sanctuary. She was thankful to get home intact--so far, at all events, as outward appearances went. She went at once to her own room. She locked herself in, and paced the floor till she could pace no more. She could order her steps, but not her thoughts, and her thoughts took wings and climbed lofty heavens of white-piled clouds, and the white-piled clouds were all rosy-tipped, because the thoughts that scaled them came straight from her heart and were tinged with the rosy gold of her heart's desire. Oh, wonderful! wonderful! The great big soul of him! Was there a nobler man on earth? How easy to have let it pass! to have kept it between God and himself only! to have worked out his redemption in secret! But he could not, because he was a true man--the truest man ever born, and the bravest. Oh the great, big, noble soul of him!