it wrong. Possibly this conversion to more genial views of life was
quickened by the presence in the neighbourhood of a young lady whom
he chanced to admire; at least it is certain that the mere thought of
seeing her no more for ever smote him like a sword of sudden pain.

*****

That very night--or so it seemed to him, and so he believed--the Angel
of the Lord stood before him as he was wont to stand before the men of
old, and spoke a summons in his ear. How or in what seeming that summons
came Thomas Owen never told, and we need not inquire. At the least he
heard it, and, like the Apostles, he arose and girded his loins to obey.
For now, in the hour of trial, it proved that this man's faith partook
of the nature of their faith. It was utter and virgin; it was not
clogged with nineteenth-century qualifications; it had never dallied
with strange doctrines, or kissed the feet of pinchbeck substitutes for
God. In his heart he believed that the Almighty, without intermediary,
but face to face, had bidden him to go forth into the wilderness there
to perish. So he bowed his head and went.

On the following morning at breakfast Owen had some talk with his friend
the Deputation.

"You asked me last night," he said quietly, "whether I would undertake
a mission to that people of whom you were telling me--the Sons of Fire.
Well, I have been thinking it over, and come to the conclusion that I
will do so----"

At this point the Deputation, concluding that his host must be mad,
moved quietly but decidedly towards the door.