Lanark got up from his chair. "That is true, but you will not be acting the part of a friend."
"I will tell you the way, on one condition." Jager's eyes and voice pleaded. "Say that you will return to this house for supper and a bed, and that you will be within my door by sundown."
"All right," said Lanark. "I agree. Now, which way does that farm lie?"
Jager led him to the door. He pointed. "This trail joins a road beyond, an old road that is seldom used. Turn north upon it, and you will come to a part which is grown up in weeds. Nobody passes that way. Follow on until you find an old house, built low, with the earth dry and bare around it. That is the dwelling-place of Enid Mandifer."
Lanark found himself biting his lip. He started to step across the threshold, but Jager put a detaining hand on his arm. "Carry this as you go."
He was holding out a little book with a gray paper cover. It had seen usage and trouble since last Lanark had noticed it in Jager's hands; its back was mended with a pasted strip of dark cloth, and its edges were frayed and gnawed-looking, as though rats had been at it. But the front cover still said plainly:
John George Hohman's
POW-WOWS
Or
LONG LOST FRIEND
"Carry this," said Jager again, and then quoted glibly: "'Whoever carries this book with him is safe from all his enemies, visible or invisible; and whoever has this book with him cannot die without the holy corpse of Jesus Christ, nor drown in any water, nor burn up in any fire, nor can any unjust sentence be passed upon him.'"
Lanark grinned in spite of himself and his new concern. "Is this the kind of a protection that a minister of God should offer me?" he inquired, half jokingly.
"I have told you long ago that the Long Lost Friend is a good book, and a blessed one." Jager thrust it into Lanark's right-hand coat pocket. His guest let it remain, and held out his own hand in friendly termination of the visit.