If so, and if he had interest in keeping up the weird story, he had done well now to lose his charge for the time being.

Wild and improbable as such a plot seemed, it was not more extraordinary than the fact that this intensely practical young man had sought the other and protected him so long.
"Your friend is in the habit of wandering, is he not ?" asked Trenholme, guardedly.
"Can't say that he is since he came here, Principal.

He's just like a child, coming in when it's dark.

I've never"-- he spoke with zeal--"I've never known that good old gentleman out as late as this, and it's stormy." "Did you come here under the idea that I knew anything about him ?" "Well, no, I can't say that I did; but I reckoned you knew your Bible pretty well, and that you were the nearest neighbour of mine that did." There was an attempt at nervous pleasantry in this, perhaps to hide real earnestness.
Trenholme frowned.

"I don't understand you." "Well, 'twould be strange if you did, come to think of it; but I'm mighty uneasy about that old man, and I've come to ask you what the Bible really does say about the Lord's coming.