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 pounds for the East London poor fund. But still, say what you will to me. I am here to listen."

He looked calmly at the young man with his unsmiling eyes. He held a Russian cigarette in his fingers, and he waved it with a gentle gesture of invitation as if from an immeasurable superiority.

And as Gortre watched him he knew that here was a brain and intelligence far keener and finer than his own. But with all that certainty he felt entirely undismayed, strangely uplifted.

"I have a message for you, Mr. Schuabe," he began, and the other bowed slightly, without irony, at his words. "I have a message for you, one which I have been sent here—I firmly believe—to deliver, but it is not the message or the argument that you expect to hear."

He stopped for a short time, marshalling his mental forces, and noticing a slight but perceptible look of surprise in his host's eyes.

"I know you better than you imagine, sir," he said gravely, "and not as many other good and devout Christians see you. I tell you here to-night with absolute certainty that you are the active enemy of Christ—I say active enemy."

The face opposite became slightly less tranquil, but the voice was as calm as ever.

"You speak according to your lights, Mr. Gortre," he said. "I am no Christian, but there is much good in Christianity. My words and writings may have helped to lift the veil of superstition and hereditary influences from the eyes of many men, and in that sense I am an enemy of the Christian faith, I suppose. My sincerity is my only apology—if one were needed. You speak with more harshness and less tolerance than I should have thought it your pleasure or your duty to use."

Gortre rose. "Man," he cried, with sudden sternness,