I, who but a few weeks ago could have commanded both by scores--and now none might aid me.

None might call me friend--I was alone.

These words brought it home to me more clearly than before, and the loneliness of it sank into my heart, and my pride fled, and I told the good man all, looking to see him shrink from me.
But he did not, hearing me patiently to the end.

I think if he had shrunk from me, the telling had left me worse than when I kept it hid from him.
When I ended, he laid his hand on my shoulder--even as the bishop had laid his, and said: "Vengeance is mine.

I will repay, saith the Lord." And I, who had never heard those words before, thought them a promise sent by the mouth of this prophet, as it were, to me, and wondered.