The New Magdalen

"No!" he cried. "Don't say that! Say that I try to love my neighbor as

myself. Who but a Pharisee can believe that he is better than another?

The best among us to-day may, but for the mercy of God, be the worst

among us tomorrow. The true Christian virtue is the virtue which never

despairs of a fellow-creature. The true Christian faith believes in Man

as well as in God. Frail and fallen as we are, we can rise on the wings

of repentance from earth to heaven. Humanity is sacred. Humanity has its

immortal destiny. Who shall dare say to man or woman, 'There is no hope

in you?' Who shall dare say the work is all vile, when that work bears

on it the stamp of the Creator's hand?"

He turned away for a moment, struggling with the emotion which she had

roused in him.

Her eyes, as they followed him, lighted with a momentary

enthusiasm--then sank wearily in the vain regret which comes too late.

Ah! if he could have been her friend and her adviser on the fatal day

when she first turned her steps toward Mablethorpe House! She sighed

bitterly as the hopeless aspiration wrung her heart. He heard the sigh;

and, turning again, looked at her with a new interest in his face.

"Miss Roseberry," he said.

She was still absorbed in the bitter memories of the past: she failed to

hear him.

"Miss Roseberry," he repeated, approaching her.

She looked up at him with a start.

"May I venture to ask you something?" he said, gently.

She shrank at the question.

"Don't suppose I am speaking out of mere curiosity," he went on.

"And pray don't answer me unless you can answer without betraying any

confidence which may have been placed in you."

"Confidence!" she repeated. "What confidence do you mean?"

"It has just struck me that you might have felt more than a common

interest in the questions which you put to me a moment since," he

answered. "Were you by any chance speaking of some unhappy woman--not

the person who frightened you, of course--but of some other woman whom

you know?"

Her head sank slowly on her bosom. He had plainly no suspicion that she

had been speaking of herself: his tone and manner both answered for it

that his belief in her was as strong as ever. Still those last words

made her tremble; she could not trust herself to reply to them.

He accepted the bending of her head as a reply.

"Are you interested in her?" he asked next.

She faintly answered this time. "Yes."

"Have you encouraged her?"

"I have not dared to encourage her."

His face lighted up suddenly with enthusiasm. "Go to her," he said, "and

let me go with you and help you!"