The boy’s face filled with a rush of color. As the bishop’s sentence ended, he sprang to his feet. He spoke in an awed voice. “Bishop, I hope you won’t think me irreverent, but I believe God sent you that dream—straight.”
“Yes,” the bishop answered calmly. “I think so.”
“Let me tell you,” the young man begged. “Last night for me was—horrible. I was here to help my mother. I’d got tied up in that ghastly net, perfectly innocent of it all. My mother was going to hear, instead of the good news I’d hoped to send, that I was to be hung for murder. It would kill her—kill her with torture. And I couldn’t do—one thing. I thought of you, of course, and it came to me what you’d said that morning as I went off—do you remember? You said: ‘If I can ever do anything for you you’ll try to let me know, won’t you?’ That pleased me, you know, bishop. I’d never met anybody like you, and that you should take the trouble seemed wonderful. I knew you meant it, too. So last night in my trouble I thought of that and of how I did not know even your name. It’s an odd thing to talk about to any one, bishop, but I have to tell you. I prayed. Prayed for all I was worth that you’d help me—that you should be let know. I said aloud over and over: ‘Make him go to Lancaster—go to Lancaster.’ I thought with all my strength; I tried to get a word to you, somewhere, somehow—I couldn’t tell where or how. And it got there. Good Lord!” the boy gasped.
The bishop gazed at him thoughtfully. “Yes, it got there. It’s wonderful, of course—most things are wonderful. But it doesn’t surprise me. It’s not the first time that the Lord has made his angels messengers. ‘Angel’ means messenger, as you know—that’s their business. I wish I could get that face,” he complained half to himself. “It bothers me.”
The great young fellow was shaking. He stared with enormous eyes at the bishop. He was beyond words. But the bishop smiled his quaint, queer smile and went on quietly.
“Doctor Fletcher, whom you met just now, would call this affair suggestion or telepathy. I call it ‘the Lord’s doing, and marvellous in our eyes.’ Probably we mean the same thing—a mere difference of phraseology.”
The boy burst forth. “It was my angel of life. He and you gave me my life. Bishop—I don’t know how to say it, but—I’d do anything. If only I could show you!”
The bishop reached across the table and laid his long, steady hand on the trembling fingers. “I’m going to ask you to do something,” he said reassuringly.
“Will you?” The boy’s face lighted.
“But tell me about yourself and your plans.” And in a few words it was told; a meagre story, yet wide with courage and manliness. “So you’re only from Australia this six months, and you’ve got no friends and practically no prospects,” the old churchman reflected aloud, and then was still, his eyes alive with thought. “My boy, I’ll just say a word—first. I intend to look after you. You’ve dropped into my clutches, and I mean to clutch you. You’re the best thing that could have happened to me on earth. If you’ll do one thing for me.”