Just then the Bishop came back, and very soon he and Felicia went away leaving the young carpenter at his work. Some one noticed that he whistled louder than ever as he planed.
"Felicia," said the Bishop, "did you know Stephen Clyde before?"
"Yes, 'back in the world,' dear Bishop. He was one of my acquaintances in Nazareth Avenue Church."
"Ah!" said the Bishop.
"We were very good friends," added Felicia.
"But nothing more?" the Bishop ventured to ask.
Felicia's face glowed for an instant. Then she looked her companion in the eyes frankly and answered: "Truly and truly, nothing more."
"It would be just the way of the world for these two people to come to like each other, though," thought the man to himself, and somehow the thought made him grave. It was almost like the old pang over Camilla. But it passed, leaving him afterwards, when Felicia had gone back, with tears in his eyes and a feeling that was almost hope that Felicia and Stephen would like each other. "After all," he said, like the sensible, good man that he was, "is not romance a part of humanity? Love is older than I am, and wiser."
The week following, the Bishop had an experience that belongs to this part of the Settlement history. He was coming back to the Settlement very late from some gathering of the striking tailors, and was walking along with his hands behind him, when two men jumped out from behind an old fence that shut off an abandoned factory from the street, and faced him. One of the men thrust a pistol in his face, and the other threatened him with a ragged stake that had evidently been torn from the fence.
"Hold up your hands, and be quick about it!" said the man with the pistol.