"I thought you believed that too."

He gave her a peculiar smile. "If you was to say right out now in public
that you knew he wasn't the man they take him for, but only a poor
maniac who don't know who he is himself, you'd put an end to the most
part of his influence."

"What do I know about it?" she asked scornfully; but, in haste to
divert him from an answer, she went on, "I don't see that he does any
harm, any way. You say yourself he's as good as can be."

"So he is, poor gentleman; but he's mad, and getting madder. I don't
know exactly what's brewing, but I tell you this, there's going to be
trouble of some sort before long."

"What sort?"

"Well, for one thing, drunken Job is calling out in the rum-hole that
he'll kill his wife if he finds her up to any more religious nonsense;
and she is up to something of that sort, and he's quite able to do it,
too. I heard him beating her the other night."

Eliza shuddered.

"I'm a kind-hearted fellow, Miss White," he went on, with feeling in his
voice. "I can't bear to feel that there's something hanging over the
heads of people like her--more than one of them perhaps--and that
they're being led astray when they might be walking straight on after
their daily avocations."