to contemplate; yet I am not aware that you do better by each other than
I am ready to do for any man. I can't pretend to love every body, but I
do my best for those I can help. Mr. Drake, I would gladly serve you."

The old man said nothing. His mood was stormy. Would he accept life
itself from the hand of him who denied his Master?--seek to the powers
of darkness for cure?--kneel to Antichrist for favor, as if he and not
Jesus were lord of life and death? Would _he_ pray a man to whom the
Bible was no better than a book of ballads, to come betwixt him and the
evils of growing age and disappointment, to lighten for him the
grasshopper, and stay the mourners as they went about his streets! He
had half turned, and was on the point of walking silent into the house,
when he bethought himself of the impression it would make on the
unbeliever, if he were thus to meet the offer of his kindness. Half
turned, he stood hesitating.

"I have a passion for therapeutics," persisted the doctor; "and if I
can do any thing to ease the yoke upon the shoulders of my fellows--"

Mr. Drake did not hear the end of the sentence: he heard instead,
somewhere in his soul, a voice saying, "My yoke is easy, and my burden
is light." He _could_ not let Faber help him.

"Doctor, you have the great gift of a kind heart," he began, still half
turned from him.

"My heart is like other people's," interrupted Faber. "If a man wants
help, and I've got it, what more natural than that we should come
together?"