burglar in person. He has owned his crime to me, and I've let him off the
penalty on condition that he tells you all about it." The humor was not
too rank for the horsey people whom St. John had mainly about him, but
some of the women said, "Poor Mr. Hewson!" when the host, failing
Hewson's confession, went on to betray that he had risen at that
unearthly hour to go down to the St. Johnswort Inn for a cup of its
famous coffee. The coffee turned out to be the greatest kind of joke; one
of the men asked Hewson if he could say on his honor that it was really
any better than St. John's coffee there before them, and another
professed to be in a secret more recondite than had yet been divined: it
was that long grim girl, who served it; she had lured Hewson from his
rest at five o'clock in the morning; and this humorist proposed a Welsh
rarebit some night at the inn, where they could all see for themselves
why Hewson broke out of the house and smashed a trellis before sunrise.

Hewson sat silent, not even attempting a defensive sally. In fact it was
only his surface mind which was employed with what was going on; as
before, his deeper thought was again absorbed with his great experience.
He could not, if his conscience had otherwise suffered him, have spoken
of it in that company, and the laughter died away from his silence as if
it had been his offence. He was not offended, but he was ashamed, and
not ashamed so much for St. John as for himself, that he could have ever
imagined acquiring merit in such company by exploiting an experience
which should have been sacred to him. How could he have been so shabby?
He was justly punished in the humiliating contrast between being the butt
of these poor wits, and the hero of an incident which, whatever its real
quality was, had an august character of mystery. He had recognized this
from the first instant; he had perceived that the occurrence was for him,
and for him alone, until he had reasoned some probable meaning into it or
from it; and yet he had been willing, he saw it, he owned it! to win the