hand held Charley's for a moment, as he looked him benignly in the eye.

With a kind of instinct as to the course he must henceforth pursue,
Charley replied simply, dropping his eye-glass as he met that clear
soluble look of the priest--such a well of simplicity he had never before
seen. Only naked eye could meet that naked eye, imperfect though his own
sight was.

"It is good of you to feel so, and to come and tell me so," he answered
quietly. "I have been a great trouble, I know."

There was none of the old pose in his manner, none of the old cryptic
quality in his words.

"We were anxious for your sake--and for the sake of your friends,
Monsieur."

Charley evaded the suggestion. "I cannot easily repay your kindness and
that of Jo Portugais, my good friend here," he rejoined.

"M'sieu'," replied Jo, his face turned away, and his foot pushing a log
on the fire, "you have repaid it."

Charley shook his head. "I am in a conspiracy of kindness," he said.
"It is all a mystery to me. For why should one expect such treatment
from strangers, when, besides all, one can never make any real return,
not even to pay for board and lodging!"

"'I was a stranger and ye took me in,"' said the Cure, smiling by no
means sentimentally. "So said the Friend of the World."