Another item appeared in the papers; the old man called Cameron had been brought before the magistrates at Quebec for some street disturbance of which he appeared to have been the innocent cause.

Upon this Cyril Harkness took a whim into his head, which he made known to all his friends in the place, and then to Eliza—­a most extraordinary whim, for it was nothing less than to go down to Quebec, and take the street preacher under his own protection.

“I feel as if I had a sort of responsibility,” said he, “for I was at the very beginning of this whole affair, and saw the house where he had lived, and I got real well acquainted with his partner, who no doubt had ill-treated him.  I saw the place where a daughter of his perished too, and now he’s got so near up here as this, I can’t bear to think of that old man being ill-treated and having no one to look after him.  I’m going right down to Quebec by the Saturday-night train, an’ I’ll be back Monday morning if I can persuade the old gentleman to come right here where I can look after him.  I reckon there’s room in the Harmon house for both him and me, an’ I reckon, if he’s got anything particularly powerful to say in the way of religion, it won’t do this little town any harm to hear it.”

He had said all this to Eliza.

“Don’t!” she cried in great surprise, but with determined opposition.  “I shall never think you have any sense again if you do such a foolish and wicked thing.”

“Why now, Miss White, as to losing your good opinion, I didn’t know as I’d been fortunate enough to get it yet; and as to its being wicked, I don’t see how you make that out.”

“It’s meddling with what you have nothing to do with.”

“Well now, what will you give me not to go?” He said these words, as he said most of his words, in a languid, lingering way, but he turned and faced her with an abrupt glance.

He and she were standing at the head of the first staircase in the unfurnished corridor.  It was the middle of the afternoon; no one chanced to be passing.  He, light-moving, pretty fellow as he was, leaned on the wall and glanced at her sharply.  She stood erect, massive, not only in her form, but in the strength of will that she opposed to his, and a red flush slowly mantled her pale, immobile face.

“I don’t know what you want of me,” she said.  “Money’s the thing you love, and I haven’t any money; but whether I had or not, I would give you nothing.”  She turned at the last word.

Then Harkness, taking the chiding and jeers of all his companions good-naturedly, and giving them precisely the same excuses that he had given to Eliza, started for Quebec.

What was more remarkable, he actually brought back the old preacher with him—­brought him, or rather led him, to the Harmon house, for the old man was seemingly quite passive.  This was an accomplished fact when Eliza and Harkness met again.