"I will do anything to rid you of this fellow, who looks more like a madman than a beggar."
She stepped forward and spoke to the man again—her voice sounded gentle and persuasive to Brand, in this tongue which he could not understand. When she had finished, the uncouth person in the tattered garments dropped on both knees on the pavement, and took her hand in his, and kissed it in passionate gratitude. Then he rose, and stood with his cap in his hand.
"He will go with you. I am so sorry to trouble you, Mr. Brand; and I have not even said, 'How do you do?'"
To hear this beautiful voice after so long a silence—to find those calm, dark, friendly eyes regarding him—bewildered him, or gave him courage, he knew not which. He said to her, with a quick flush on his forehead,
"May I come back to tell you how I succeed?"
She only hesitated for a second.
"If you have time. If you care to take the trouble."
He carried away with him the look of her face—that filled his heart with sunlight. In the hansom, into which he bundled his unkempt companion, if only he had known enough Russian, he would have expressed gratitude to him. Beggar or maniac, or whatever he was, had he not been the means of procuring for George Brand that long-coveted, long-dreamed-of smile of welcome?