"Excuse me for noticing it," I said to him one morning, while we were engaged over our books--"I cannot help observing that you appear to have some trouble on your mind. Is it indiscreet, on my part, to ask if I can be of any use to you?"He changed color--looked up at me quickly--looked down again at his book--struggled hard with some secret fear or secret reluctance that was in him--and suddenly burst out with this extraordinary question: "I suppose you were in earnest when you preached that sermon in London?""I am astonished that you should doubt it," I replied.
He paused again; struggled with himself again; and startled me by a second outbreak, even stranger than the first.
"I am one of the people you preached at in your sermon," he said.
"That's the true reason why I asked you to take me for your pupil. Don't turn me out! When you talked to your congregation of tortured and tempted people, you talked of Me."I was so astonished by the confession, that I lost my presence of mind. For the moment, I was unable to answer him.
