"Brother!" he said in a gentle voice.
O'Hagan pulled himself up sharply. For a moment it seemed as if he would have refused to stay, but the next he realized that it would be of no use.
"What do you want with me?" he began. "I know I'm a thief and a drunkard. Do you want to hand me a Sunday School tract? If so get it over."
The stranger's hand tightened on his arm, and he began to speak in a calm but strangely thrilling voice. "It is written there: 'men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.'"
"Well?" said O'Hagan, trying to hold a countenance of little concern.
"Well?" said the stranger, "for why did you steal?"
O'Hagan coughed and held down his head.
"A man without scruple and without heart," the stranger remarked to himself.
O'Hagan looked up with a start. "Look here," he began. "You've no right to——"
Then of a sudden the mist began to rise from the clump of bushes and the stranger vanished. O'Hagan was back in the flesh. He stood there dazed for the moment, with the little cross clutched in his hand. He sat down again and tried to force his spirit back to the other scene, but in vain. He felt that he had been thrilled through and through. The oppression, however, unlike the stern-faced monk, did not vanish, it deepened. A throbbing headache came on, which refused to be shaken off, and eventually sent O'Hagan to the "Bell Inn" to drink still deeper of the waters of oblivion.