quietness of tone. The strangeness to himself--though it was a
strangeness he accepted absolutely without protest--lay in his telling
it at all, and in a sense of his knowledge that each of these creatures
would understand and mysteriously know what depths he had touched this
day.

"Just before I left my lodgings this morning," he said, "I found myself
standing in the middle of my room and speaking to Something aloud. I
did not know I was going to speak. I did not know what I was speaking
to. I heard my own voice cry out in agony, 'Lord, Lord, what shall I do
to be saved?'"

The curate made a sudden movement in his place and his sallow young
face flushed. But he said nothing.

Glad's small and sharp countenance became curious.

"'Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth,'" she quoted tentatively.

"No," answered Dart; "it was not like that. I had never thought of such
things. I believed nothing. I was going out to buy a pistol and when I
returned intended to blow my brains out."

"Why?" asked Glad, with passionately intent eyes; "why?"

"Because I was worn out and done for, and all the world seemed worn out
and done for. And among other things I believed I was beginning slowly
to go mad."

From the thief there burst forth a low groan and he turned his face to