saving him from many a tumble.

"All right behind there?" Mr. Skale would thunder.

"All right, thanks, Mr. Skale," he would reply in his thin tenor,
"I'm coming."

"Come along, then!" And on they would go faster than before, till in due
course they emerged from the encircling woods and reached the more open
ground about the house. Somehow, in the jostling relations of the walk, a
freedom of intercourse had been established that no amount of formal talk
between four walls could have accomplished. They scraped their dirty
boots vigorously on the iron mat.

"Tired?" asked the clergyman, kindly.

"Winded, Mr. Skale, thank you--nothing more," was the reply. He looked up
at the square mass of the house looming dark against the sky, and the
noise his companion made opening the door--the actual rattle of the iron
knob did it--suddenly brought to him a clear realization of two things:
First, he understood that the whole way from the station Mr. Skale had
been watching him closely, weighing, testing, proving him, though by ways
and methods so subtle that they had escaped his observation at the time;
secondly, that he was already so caught in the network of this
personality, vaster and more powerful than his own, that escape if he
desired it would be exceedingly difficult. Like a man in a boat upon the
upper Niagara river, he already felt the tug and suction of the current
below--the lust of a great adventure drawing him forward. Mr. Skale's
hand upon his shoulder as they entered the house was the symbol of
_that_. The noise of the door closing behind him was the passing of the