The Bishop's Shadow

by I. T. Thurston

The lady was a Mrs. Russell. The bishop had formerly been her pastor and she still came to him for help and counsel. She had been much interested in a boy of sixteen who had been in her class in the mission school, a boy who was entirely alone in the world. He had picked up a living in the streets, much as Tode himself had done, and finally had fallen into bad company and into trouble.

Mrs. Russell had interested herself in his behalf, and upon her promise to be responsible for him, he had been delivered over to her instead of being sent to a reform school. She went to a number of the smaller dry goods stores and secured promises of employment for the boy as parcel deliverer. To do this work he must have a tricycle, and the energetic little lady having found a secondhand one that could be had for thirty dollars, set herself to secure this sum from several of her friends. This she had done, and was on her way to buy the tricycle when she lost her pocketbook. The owner of the tricycle, being anxious to sell, and having another offer, would not hold it for her, but sold it to the other customer. The boy, bitterly disappointed, lost hope and heart, and that night left the place where Mrs. Russell had put him. Since then she had sought in vain for him, and now, unwilling to give him up, she had come to ask the bishop's help in the search.

To all this Tode listened with flushed cheeks and fast-beating heart, while before his mind flashed a picture of himself, wet, dirty and ragged, gliding under the feet of the horses on the muddy street, the missing pocketbook clutched tightly in his hand. Then a second picture rose before him, and he saw himself crowding the emptied book into that box on the chapel door of St. Mark's.

The bishop pulled open a drawer in his desk and took from it a pocketbook, broken and stained with mud. He handed it to Mrs. Russell, who looked at him in silent wonder as she saw her own name on the inside.

"How did it get into your hands?" she questioned, at last.

"You would never guess how," the bishop answered. "It was found in the pastor's box at St. Mark's, and the rector came to me to inquire if I knew any one of that name. I had not your present address, but have been intending to look you up as soon as I could find time."

"I cannot understand it," said Mrs. Russell, carefully examining each compartment of the book. "Why in the world should the thief have put the empty pocketbook there, of all places?"

"Of course he would want to get rid of it," the bishop replied, thoughtfully, "but that certainly was a strange place in which to put it."

"If the thief could know how the loss of that money drove that poor foolish boy back into sin and misery, he surely would wish he had never touched it--if he has any conscience left," said Mrs. Russell. "There is good stuff in that poor boy of mine, and I can't bear to give him up and leave him to go to ruin."

The bishop looked at her with a grave smile as he answered: