It was in accord with his own feelings.
He had had a hard fight for months past, and had gone down in the storm of his emotions one night when a song called Champagne Charlie had had a weird and thrilling antiphonal.

There had been a subsequent debacle for himself, and then a revelation concerning Jo Portugais.

Ensued hours and days, wherein he had fought a desperate fight with the present--with himself and the reaction from his dangerous debauch.
The battle for his life had been fought for him by this gloomy woodsman who henceforth represented his past, was bound to him by a measureless gratitude, almost a sacrament--of the damned.

Of himself he had played no conscious part in it till the worst was over.

On the one side was the Cure, patient, gentle, friendly, never pushing forward the Faith which the good man dreamed should give him refuge and peace; on the other side was the murderer, who typified unrest, secretiveness, an awful isolation, and a remorse which had never been put into words or acts of restitution.