"Wasn't it strange," she said, when he paused, "wasn't it strange, and
lovely too, that you should have been taken into the bishop's
house--and kept there all this time? Did you like him just as much in
his home as in the church, Tode?"
"He's--he's"--began Tode with shining eyes, then as the bishop's face
rose before him, he choked and was silent for a moment. "I don't
b'lieve there's any other man like him in _this_ world," he said,
finally.
Nan looked at him thoughtfully, at his face that seemed to have been
changed and refined by his sickness and his new associations, at the
neat clothes he wore, then at his bare feet.
"I shouldn't think, if he's so good, that he would have let you come
away--so," she said, slowly.
Tode flushed as he tried to hide his feet under his chair.
"'Twasn't his fault," he answered, quickly. He too was silent for a
moment, then suddenly he sat upright with a look of stern resolve in
his grey eyes, as he added, "Nan, I'll tell you all there is about it,
'cause things are goin' to be diff'runt after this. I'm goin' to live
straight every way, I am; I've--promised."
Then he told her frankly the whole story; how he had deceived the
bishop, pretending to be deaf and dumb; how Mr. Gibson had come upon
him in the study, and what he had said, and how, finally, he himself
had come away in the night.
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