his waistcoat. There, guided by him, her fingers closed on the handle of a tiny stiletto.

"The sheath too . . . it is sewn by a few stitches only.” He looked up into her eyes. “You are too beautiful to be wandering these streets alone."

"I understand," she said gravely.

"Now go." He pressed the back of her hand to his lips, and released it.

"Can I do nothing?" she asked, with a hard sob. "Yes. . . 'tis unlucky, they say, to accept a knife without paying for it. One kiss. . . . You may tell Noll. Is it too high a price?"

She knelt and kissed him on the brow.

"Ah! ..." He drew a long sigh. "I have held you to-day, and to-day you have kissed me. Go

now."

She went. The dog ran with her a little way, then turned and crept back to its master.

CHAPTER V

THE FINDING

"HOLA!” hailed a man, signalling by a brazier with his back to the wind. "For what are you seeking?"

Ruth halted, gripping her stiletto. This man might help her, perhaps. At any rate, he seemed a coolheaded fellow who made the best of things.

For two hours she had searched, and for the time her strength was nearly spent. Dust filled her hair and caked her long eyelashes. Her face, haggard with woe and weariness, was a mask of dust.

"For one," she answered, "who was to have attended High Mass in the Cathedral."

"Eh?" The man swept a hand to the ruined shell of that building, at the end of the Square, and to a horrible pile of masonry covering many hundreds of bodies. "If he reached there, your Excellency had better go home and pray for his soul; that is, if your Excellency believes it efficacious. But first, will your Excellency sit here and rest?-no, not on the lee side, in the fumes of the charcoal, but to windward here, where the fire is bright, and where I have the honour to give

room. . . . So your Excellency did not attend the Mass-not approving of it, maybe?"

"It would seem that you know me?" said Ruth, answering something in his tone, not his words.

The question set him chuckling.

"Not by that token-though 'faith 'tis an ill wind blows nobody good. This earthquake, considered philosophically, is a great opportunity for heretics. You and I, for example, may sit here in the very middle of the Square and talk blasphemy to our heart's content; whereas-" He broke off. "But I forget my manners. I ought to have started by saying that no one, having once set eyes on your Excellency's face, could ever forget it; and, by St. James, that is no more than the truth!"

"Where have you seen me before?"

"By the gateway of the Holy Office, in a carriage with your lord beside you. I marked his face, too. What it is to be young and rich and beautiful! . . And yet you might have remembered me, seeing that I made part of the procession, though-praise be to fate!-a modest one."

Ruth gazed at him. "I remember you," she said slowly; "you were one of the Penitents."

"They were gracious enough to call me so. Yes, I can understand that a sar-benito makes some difference to a man's personal appearance. And old Gonsalvez-I saw your Excellency wince and your

Excellency's beauty turn pale when he cast up his hands to the sun. Hey? How is it possiblehow went the words?"

Ruth had them well by heart. "How is it possible for people, beholding that glorious Body, to worship any Being but Him who created it?”

"Right-word for word! Well, they made a lens for that glorious Body and fried old Gonsalvez with it. Were you looking on?"

"No," said Ruth, and shivered.

"Well, I did-perforce. 'Twas part of my lesson; for you must know that I, too, had had my little difficulty over that same glorious Sun, touching his standing still over Gibeon at the command of ancient Joshua. 'Faith, I've no quarrel with a miracle or so, up and down; but that one. . . . Well, they convinced me I was a fool to have any doubt, and a worse fool to let it slip off the tongue. And yet," said the Penitent, warming his hands and casting a look up at the sky, where the dust-cloud had given place to a rolling pall of smoke, "what a treat it is to let the tongue wag at times!"

Ruth, her strength refreshed by the few minutes' rest, thanked him and arose to continue her search. "Stay," said the Penitent. "Your Excellency has not heard all the story, nor yet arrived near the moral. ... Between ourselves the reverend fathers were lenient with me because-well, it may have been be

cause I hold some influence among the beggars of Lisbon, who are numerous and not always meek, in spite of the promise that meekness shall inherit the earth. I may confess, in short, that my presence in the procession was to some extent a farce, and the result of a compromise. But, all the same, your Excellency does ill to disbelieve in miracles-as I daresay your Excellency, casting an eye about Lisbon on this particular day of All the Saints, will not dispute?”

"Alas, sir! I have seen too many horrors to-day to be in any mood to argue."

"Then," said the Penitent, skipping up, "you are in the precise mood to be convinced; as I have seen men, under extremity of torture, ready to believe anything. Come!"

She hesitated. "Where would you lead me?"

"To a miracle," he answered, and, with a fine gesture, flinging his tattered cloak over his shoulder, he led the way. He strode rapidly down a couple of streets. Once or twice coming to a chasm across the roadway he paused, drew back, and cleared it with a leap. But at these pitfalls he neither turned nor offered Ruth a hand. She followed him panting, so agile was

his pace.

The first street ran south, the second east. He entered a third which turned north again as if to lead back into the Square. After following it for twenty yards he halted and allowed her to catch up with him.