"You can have my flowers, too, if you want them," said Gila, excitedly, seeing that her flood of insult had brought forth no answering word from either listener. "They're very handsome, rare ones—orchids, you know. Did you ever see any before? I don't mind leaving them with you because I have a great many flowers, and these were given me by a young man I don't care in the least about."

She unpinned the flowers and held them out to Bonnie, but the sick girl lay still and regarded her with that quiet, half-amused gravity and did not offer to take them.

"I presume you can find a waste-basket down in the office if you want to get rid of them," said Bonnie, suddenly, in a clear, refined voice. "I really shouldn't care for them. Isn't there a waste-basket somewhere about?" she asked, turning toward the nurse.

"Down in the hall by the front entrance," answered the nurse, grimly. She was ready to play up to whatever cue Bonnie gave her.

Gila stood haughtily holding her flowers and looking from one woman to the other, unable to believe that any other woman had the insufferable audacity to meet her on her own ground in this way. Were they actually guying her, or were they innocents who really thought she did not want the flowers, or who did not know enough to think orchids beautiful? Before she could decide Bonnie was speaking again, still in that quiet, superior tone of a lady that gave her the command of the situation:

"I am sorry," she said, quite politely, as if she must let her visitor down gently, "but I'm afraid you have made some mistake. I don't recall ever having met you before. It must be some other Miss Brentwood for whom you are looking."

Gila stared, and her color suddenly began to rise even under the pearly tint of her flesh. Had she possibly made some blunder? This certainly was the voice of a lady. And the girl on the bed had the advantage of absolute self-control. Somehow that angered Gila more than anything else.

"Don't you know Paul Courtland?" she demanded, imperiously.

"I never heard the name before!"

Bonnie's voice was steady, and her eyes looked coolly into the other girl's. The nurse looked at Bonnie and marveled. She knew the name of Paul Courtland well; she telephoned to that name every day. How was it that the girl did not know it? She liked this girl and the man who had brought her here and been so anxious about her. But who on earth was this huzzy in fur?

Gila looked at Bonnie madly. Her stare said as plainly as words could have done: "You lie! You do know him!" But Gila's lips said, scornfully, "Aren't you the poor girl whose kid brother got killed by an automobile in the street?"

Across Bonnie's stricken face there flashed a spasm of pain and her very lips grew white.

"I thought so!" sneered Gila, rushing on with her insult. "And yet you deny that you ever heard Paul Courtland's name! He picked up the kid and carried it in the house and ran errands for you, but you don't know him! That's gratitude for you! I told him the working-class were all like that. I have no doubt he has paid for this very room that you are lying in!"

"Stop!" cried Bonnie, sitting up, her eyes like two stars, her face white to the very lips. "You have no right to come here and talk like that! I cannot understand who could have sent you! Certainly not the courteous stranger who picked up my little brother. I do not know his name, nor anything about him, but I can assure you that I shall not allow him nor any one else to pay my bills. Now will you take your things and leave my room? I am feeling very—tired!"

The voice suddenly trailed off into silence and Bonnie dropped back limply upon the pillow.

The nurse sprang like an angry bear who has seen somebody troubling her cubs. She touched vigorously a button in the wall as she passed and swooped down upon the tawdry finery, stuffing it unceremoniously into the box; then she turned upon the little fur-trimmed lady, placed a capable arm about her slim waist, and scooped her out of the room. Flinging the bulging box down at her feet, where it gaped widely, gushing forth in pink, blue, cerise, and silver, she shut the door and flew back to her charge.

Down the hall hurried the emergency doctor, formidable in his white-linen uniform. When Gila looked up from the confusion at her feet she encountered the gaze of a pair of grave and disapproving eyes behind a pair of fascinating tortoise-shell goggles. She was not accustomed to disapproval in masculine eyes and it infuriated her.

"What does all this mean?" His voice expressed a good many kinds of disapproval.

"It means that I have been insulted, sir, by one of your nurses!" declared Gila, in her most haughty tone, with a tilt of her chin and a flirt of her fur trappings. "I shall make it my business to see that she is removed at once from her position."

The doctor eyed her mildly, as though she were a small bat squeaking at a mighty hawk. "Indeed! I fancy you will find that a rather difficult matter!" he answered, contemptuously. "She is one of our best nurses! James!" to a passing assistant, "escort this person and her—belongings"—looking doubtfully at the mess on the floor—"down to the street!"

Then he swiftly entered Bonnie's room, closing and fastening the door behind him.

The said James, with an ill-concealed grin, stooped to his task; and thus, in mortification, wrath, and ignominy, did Gila descend to her waiting limousine.

There were tears of anger on her cheeks as she sat back against her cushions; more tears fell, which, regardless of her pearly complexion, she wiped away with a cobweb of a handkerchief, while she sat and hated Courtland, and the whole tribe of college men, her cousin Bill Ward included, for getting her into a scrape like this. Defeat was a thing she could not brook. She had never, since she came out of short frocks, been so defeated in her life! But it should not be defeat! She would take her full revenge for all that had happened! Courtland should bite the dust! She would show him that he could not go around picking up stray beauties and sending her after them to pet them for him.

She did not watch for acquaintances during that ride home. She remained behind drawn curtains. Arrived at home, she stormed up to her room, giving orders to her maid not to disturb her, and sat down angrily to indite an epistle to Courtland that should bring him to his knees.

Meantime the doctor and nurse worked silently, skilfully over Bonnie until the weary eyes opened once more, and a long-drawn sigh showed that the girl had come back to the world.

By and by, when the doctor had gone out of the room and the nurse had finished giving her the beef-tea that had been ordered, Bonnie raised her eyes. "Would you mind finding out for me just what this room costs?" she asked, wearily.

The nurse had been fixing it all up in her mind what she should say when this question came. "Why, I'm under the impression you won't have to pay anything," she said, pleasantly. "You see, sometimes patients, when they go out, are kind of grateful and leave a sort of endowment of a bed for a while, or something like that, for cases just like yours, where strangers come in for a few days and need quiet—real quiet that they can't get in the ward, you know. I believe some one paid something for this room in some kind of a way like that. I guess the doctor thought you would get well quicker if you had it quiet, so he put you in here. You needn't worry a bit about it."

Bonnie smiled. "Would you mind making sure?" she asked. "I'd like to know just what I owe. I have a little money, you know."

The nurse nodded and slipped away to whisper the story to the grave doctor, who grew more indignant and contemptuous than he had been to Gila, and sent her promptly back with an answer.

"You don't have to pay a cent," she said, cheerfully, as she returned. "This bed is endowed temporarily, the doctor says, to be used at his discretion, and he wants to keep you here till some one comes who needs this room more than you do. At present there isn't any one, so you needn't worry. We are not going to let any more little feather-headed spitfires in to see you, either. The doctor balled the office out like everything for letting that girl up."

Bonnie tried to smile again, but only ended in a sigh. "Oh, it doesn't matter," she said, and then, after a minute, "You've been very good to me. Some time I hope I can do something for you. Now I'm going to sleep."

The nurse went out to look after some of her duties. Half an hour later she came back to Bonnie's room and entered softly, not to waken her. She was worried lest she had left the window open too wide and the wind might be blowing on her, for it had turned a good deal colder since the sun went down.

She tiptoed to the bed and bent over in the dim light to see if her patient was all right. Then she drew back sharply.

The bed was empty!

She turned on the light and looked all around. There was no one else in the room! Bonnie was gone!



CHAPTER XIII

Wildly the nurse searched the room, throwing open the wardrobe first! Bonnie's shabby clothes were no longer hanging on the hooks! She rushed to the window and looked helplessly along the fire-escape out into the courtyard below, where the ambulance was just bringing in a fresh case. There was no sign of her patient. Turning back, she saw on the table a bit of paper from the daily record-sheet folded up and pinned together with a quaint little circle of old-fashioned gold in which were set tiny garnets and pearls. The note was addressed, "Miss Wright, Nurse." A five-dollar bill fell from the paper. The nurse picked it up and read:

DEAR NURSE,—I am leaving this little pin for you because you have been so good to me. It isn't very valuable, but it is all I have. The five dollars is for the room. I know it is worth more, but I haven't any more just now. You have all been very kind. Please give the money to the doctor and thank him for me. Don't worry about me; I am all right. I just need to get back to work.

Good-by, and thank you again, Sincerely, ROSE BONNER BRENTWOOD.

The nurse rushed down to the office. A search was instituted at once. Every one in the office and halls was questioned. Only one elevator-man remembered a person, dressed in black, going out of the nurses' side door. He had thought it one of the probation nurses.

They searched the streets for several blocks around. It had been only a few minutes, and the girl was weak. She could not have gone far! But no Bonnie was found!

The evening mail came in and a letter with a Western postmark arrived for Miss R.B. Brentwood. The nurse looked at it sadly. A letter for the poor child! What hope and friendliness might it not contain! If it had only come a couple of hours sooner!

Later that evening, when it was finally settled that the patient had really escaped, the nurse went to the telephone.

Courtland was in Tennelly's room. They had been discussing woman suffrage, some question that had come up in the political-science class that day. Tennelly held that most women were too unbalanced to vote; you never could tell what a woman would do next. She was swayed entirely by her emotions, mainly two—love and hate; sometimes pride and selfishness. Always selfishness. Women were all selfish!

Courtland thought of the calm, true eyes of Mother Marshall and the telegram that had come the day before. He held that all women were not selfish. He said he knew one woman who was not. All women were not flighty and unbalanced nor swayed by their emotions. He knew two girls whom he thought were not swayed by their emotions. Just then he was called to the telephone.

The nurse's voice broke upon his absorption with a disturbing element: "Mr. Courtland, this is the nurse from Good Samaritan Hospital. I thought you ought to know that Miss Brentwood has disappeared! We have searched everywhere, but can get no clue to her whereabouts. She wasn't fit to go. She had fainted again—was unconscious a long time. She had a very disturbing call from a young woman this afternoon, who mentioned your name and got up to the room somehow without the usual formalities. Of course I didn't know but she had the doctor's permission, and she came right in. She brought a lot of dirty evening gowns and tried to give them to my patient, and called her a working-girl; spoke of her little dead brother as 'the kid,' and was very insulting. I thought perhaps you would be able to give us a clue as to where the patient was. She really was too weak to be out alone; and in this bitter cold! Her jacket was very thin. She's just in the condition to get pneumonia. I'm all broken up because I thought she was sound asleep. She left a little note for me, with a pin she wanted me to keep, and five dollars to pay for her room. You see she got the notion from what that girl said that she was on charity in that room and she wouldn't stay. I thought you'd want me to let you know!"

There was almost a sob in the nurse's voice as she ended. Courtland's heart sank.

Poor Gila! She hadn't understood. She had meant well, but hadn't known how! Poor fool he, that had asked her to go! She had never had experience with sorrow and poverty. How could she be expected to understand?

His anger rose as he listened to a few more details concerning Gila's remarks. Of course the nurse was exaggerating, but how crude of Gila! Where were her woman's intuitions? Her finer sensibilities? Where indeed? But, after all, perhaps the nurse had not understood fully. Perhaps she had taken offense and misconstrued Gila's intended kindness! Well, the main thing was that Bonnie was gone and must be hunted up. It wouldn't do to leave her without friends, sick and weak, this cold night. She had, of course, gone home to her room. He could easily find her. He wouldn't mind going out, though he had intended doing other things that evening; but he had undertaken this job and he must see it through. Then there was that telegram from Mother Marshall! And her letter on the way! Too bad! Of course he must make Bonnie go back to the hospital. He would have no trouble in coaxing her back when she knew how she had distressed them all.

"I'll go right down to her old place and see if she's there," he told the nurse. "She has probably gone back to her room. Certainly I will insist that she return to the hospital to-night."

As he hung up the receiver Pat touched his elbow and pointed to a messenger-boy waiting for him with a note.

It was Gila's violet-scented missive over which she had wept those angry tears. He signed for the letter with a frown. Somehow the perfume annoyed him. He put the thing in his pocket, having no patience to read it at once, and went hurriedly down the hall.

As he passed the office Courtland found a letter in his box, noting with a sort of comfort that it bore a Western postmark. As he waited for his trolley at the corner, he reflected how strange it was that this young woman, whom he had never seen nor heard of before, should suddenly be flung thus upon his horizon and seem, in a measure, his responsibility. He had been shaking free from that sense of accountability since she had been reported getting better; and especially since he had put her upon the hearts of Mother Marshall and Gila. Gila! How the thought of her annoyed just now!

In the trolley he opened Mother Marshall's letter and read, marveling at the revelation of motherhood it contained. Motherhood and fatherhood! How beautiful! A sort of Christ-mother and Christ-father, these two who had been bereft of their own, were willing to be! And Bonnie! How she needed them—and had gone before she knew! He must persuade her to go to Mother Marshall! For, after all, this whole bungle was his fault. If he had never tried to tole Gila into it this wouldn't have happened.

A factory-girl, belated, shivered into the car in a thin summer jacket and stood beside a girl in furs and a handsome coat. Courtland thought of Bonnie in her little shabby black suit—a summer suit, of course. He remembered noticing how thin it looked as they stood beside the grave on the bleak hillside, and wondering if she were not cold. But it was mild that day compared to this, and the sun had been shining then. She must have half frozen in that long, long ride! And had she money enough to buy her something to eat? She had left a five-dollar bill at the hospital. Some instinct taught him that it was the last she had!

He grew more and more nervous and impatient as he neared his destination.

He sprang up the narrow stairs that had grown so familiar to him the past week, watching anxiously the crack under the door to see if there was a light. But it was all dark! He tapped at the door lightly. But of course she would have gone to bed at once after the exertion of the journey! He tapped louder, and held his breath to listen. But no answer came!

Then he tapped again, and called, in half-subdued tones: "Miss Brentwood! Are you there?"

A stir was heard at the other end of the hall, the sound of the scratching of a match. A light appeared under the door of the front room, the door opened a crack, and a frowsy head was thrust out, with a candle held high above it, and eyes that were full of sleep peering into the darkness of the hall.

"Has Miss Brentwood returned? Have you seen her?" he asked.

"Not as I knows on, she 'ain't come," said a woman's voice. "I went to bed early. She might ov and I not hear her, she's so softly like."

"I wonder if we could find out? Would you mind coming and trying?"

The woman looked at him keenly. "Oh, you're the young feller what come to the fun'rul, ain't you? Well, you jest wait a bit an' I'll throw somethin' on an' come an' try." The woman came in an amazing costume of many colors, and called and shook the door. She got her key and unlocked the door, stepping cautiously inside and looking about. She advanced, holding the candle high, Courtland waiting behind. He could see one withered white rosebud on the floor. There was no sign of Bonnie! Her room was just as she had left it on the day of the funeral!

Where was Bonnie Brentwood?



CHAPTER XIV

Suddenly, as Courtland stood in the narrow, dark street alone and in uncertainty, he was no longer alone. As clearly as if he felt a touch upon his sleeve he knew that One was there beside him, and that this errand he was upon had the sanction of that Presence which had met him once in the fiery way and promised to show him what to do.

"God, show me where to find her!" he ejaculated, and then, as if one had said, "Come with me!" he turned as certainly as if a passer-by had directed him where he had seen her, and walked up the street. That is, they walked up the street.

Always in thinking of that walk afterward he thought of it as "they walking up the street"—himself and the Presence.

The first thing he remembered about it was that he had lost that sense of uncertainty and anxiety. How long the route was or where it was to end did not seem to matter. Every step of the way was companioned by One who knew what He was about. It came to him that he would like to go everywhere in such company; that no journey would be too far or arduous, no duty too unpleasant if all could be as this.

He stepped into the telephone-office and began calling up hospitals. There were one or two that reported young women brought in, but the description was not at all like the girl of whom he was in search. He jotted them down in his note-book, however, with a feeling that they might be a last resort.

As he turned the pages of the 'phone-book his eye caught the name of the city's morgue, and a sudden horror froze into his mind. What if something had happened to her and she had been taken there? What if she had ended the life which had looked so lonely and impossible to her? No, she would never do that, not with her faith in the Christ! And yet, if her vitality was low, and her heart was taxed with sorrow, she would perhaps scarcely be responsible for what she did.

He rang up the morgue sharply and put tense, eager questions.

Yes, a young woman had been brought in about an hour ago.... Yes, dressed in black—had long light hair and was slender. "Some looker!" the man who answered the 'phone said.

Courtland shuddered and hung up. He felt that he must go to the morgue.

When they entered the gruesome place of the unknown dead, although the Presence entered with him, yet he felt that it was there already, standing close among the dead; had been there when they came in!

Courtland's face was white, and set as he passed between the silent dead laid out for identification. An inward shudder went through him as he was led to the spot where lay the latest comer, a slim young girl with long golden hair, sodden from the river where she had been found, her pretty face sharpened and coarsened by sin.

He drew a deep breath of relief and turned away quickly from the sight of her poor drowned eyes, rejoicing that they had not been the eyes of Bonnie. It was terrible to think of Bonnie lying so, all drenched and her spirit put out. He was glad he might still think of her alive, and go on searching for her. But a dart of pain went through his heart as he looked again at this little wreck of womanhood, going out of a life that had dealt hardly with her; where she had reached for brightness and pleasure, and had found ashes and bitterness instead. Going into a beyond of darkness, hoping, perhaps, for no kindlier hands to greet her than those that had been withheld from her in this world! What would the resurrection mean to a poor little soul like that? What could it mean? Ah! Perhaps it had not all been her fault! Perhaps there were others who had helped push her down, smug in self-righteousness, to whom the resurrection would be more of a horror than to the pretty, ignorant child whose untaught feet had strayed into forbidden paths! Who knew? He was glad to look up and feel the Presence there! Who knew what might have passed between the soul and God? It was safe to leave that little sinful soul with Him who had died to save. It was good to go out from there knowing that the pretty, sinful girl, the hardened, grizzled sot, the poor old toothless crone, the little hunchback newsboy who lay in the same row, were guarded alike and beloved by the same Presence that would go with him.

Around the little newsboy huddled a group of street gamins, counting out their few pennies, and talking excitedly of how they would buy him some flowers. There were tear-stains down their grimy cheeks and it was plain they were pitying him, they who had perhaps yet to tread the paths of sin and deprivation and sorrow for many long years. And the Presence there! So near them, with the pitying eyes! The young man knew the eyes were pitying! If the children could only see! He felt an impulse to turn back and tell them as he passed out into the street, yet how could he make them understand—he who understood so feebly and intermittently himself? He felt a great ache in himself to go out and shout to all the world to look up and see the Presence that was in their midst, and they saw Him not!

He was entirely aware that his present mental state would have seemed to him little short of insanity twenty-four hours before; that it might pass again as it had done before; and a kind of mental frenzy seized him lest it would. He did not want to lose this assurance of One guiding through a world that was so full of sorrow as this one had recently revealed itself to him to be. And with the world-old anguished "Give me a sign!" the cry of the soul reaching out to the unknown, he spoke aloud once more: "God, if You are really there, let me find her!"

And yet if any had asked him just then if he ever prayed he would have told them no. Prayer was to him a thing utterly apart from this cry of his soul, this longing for an understanding with God.

He walked on through streets he did not know, passing men and women with worn and haggard faces, tattered garments, and discouraged mien; and always that cry came in his soul, "Oh, if they only knew!" There was the Presence by his side, and men passed by and saw Him not!

He was walking in the general direction of the Good Samaritan Hospital, just as any one would walk with a friend through a strange place and accommodate his going to the man who was guiding him. All the way there seemed to be a sort of intercourse between himself and his Companion. His soul was putting forth great questions that he would some day take up in detail and go over little by little, as one will verify a problem that one has worked out. But now he was working it out, becoming satisfied in his soul that this was the only way to solve the great otherwise unanswerable problems of the universe.

They had gone for perhaps three miles or more from the morgue, traveling for the most part through narrow streets crowded full of small dwelling-houses interspersed by cheap stores and saloons. The night lowered! the stars were not on duty. A cold wind from the river swept around corners, reminding him of the dripping yellow hair of the girl in the morgue. It cut like a knife through Courtland's heavy overcoat and made him wish he had brought his muffler. He stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets. Even in their fur linings they were stiff and cold. He thought of the girl's little light serge jacket and shivered visibly as they turned into another street where vacant lots on one side left a wide sweep for the wind and sent it tempesting along freighted with dust and stinging bits of sand. The clouds were heavy as with snow, only that it was too cold to snow. One fancied only biting steel could fall from clouds like that on a night so bitter. And any moment he might have turned back, gone a block to one side, and caught the trolley across to the university, where light and warmth and friends were waiting. And what was this one little lost girl to him? A stranger? No, she was no longer a stranger! She had become something infinitely precious to the whole universe. God cared, and that was enough! He could not be a friend of God unless he cared as God cared! He was demonstrating facts that he had never apprehended before.

The lights were out in most of the houses that they passed, for it was growing late. There were not quite so many saloons. The streets loomed wide ahead, the line of houses dark on the left, and the stretch of vacant lots, with the river beyond on the right. Across the river a line of dark buildings with occasional blink of lights blended into the dark of the sky, and the wind merciless over all.

On ahead a couple of blocks the light flung out on the pavement and marked another saloon. Bright doors swung back and forth. The intermittent throb of a piano and twang of a violin, making merry with the misery of the world; voices brokenly above it all came at intervals, loudly as the way drew nearer.

The saloon doors swung again and four or five dark figures jostled noisily out and came haltingly down the street. They walked crazily, like ships without a rudder, veering from one side of the walk to the other, shouting and singing uncouth, ribald songs, hoarse laughter interspersed with scattered oaths.

"O! Jesus Christ!" came distinctly through the quiet night. The young man felt a distinct pain for the Christ by his side, like the pressing of a thorn into the brow. He seemed to know the prick himself. For these were some of those for whom He died!

It occurred to Courtland that he was seeing everything on this walk through the eyes of the Christ. He remembered Scrooge and his journey with the Ghost of Christmas Past in Dickens's Christmas Carol. It was like that. He was seeing the real soul of everybody! He was with the architect of the universe, noting where the work had gone wrong from the mighty plans. He suddenly knew that these creatures coming giddily toward him were planned to mighty things!

The figures paused before one of the dark houses, pointed and laughed; went nearer to the steps and stooped. He could not hear what they were saying; the voices were hushed in ugly whispers, broken by harsh laughter. Only now and then he caught a syllable.

"Wake up!" floated out into the silence once. And again, "No, you don't, my pretty little chicken!"

Then a girl's scream pierced the night and something darted out from the darkness of the door-step, eluding the drunken men, but slipped and fell!

Courtland broke into a noiseless run.

The men had scrambled tipsily after the girl and clutched her. They lifted her unsteadily and surrounded her. She screamed again, and dashed this way and that blindly, but they met her every time and held her.

Courtland knew, as by a flash, that he had been brought here for this crisis. It was as if he had heard the words spoken to him, "Now go!" He, lowering his head and crouching, came swiftly forward, watching carefully where he steered, and coming straight at two of the men with his powerful shoulders. It was an old trick of the football field and it bowled the two assailants on the right straight out into the gutter. The other three made a dash at him, but he side-stepped one and tripped him; a blow on the point of the chin sent another sprawling on the sidewalk; but the last one, who was perhaps the most sober of them all, showed fight and called to his comrades to come on and get this stranger who was trying to steal their girl. The language he used made Courtland's blood boil. He struck the fellow across his foul mouth, and then clenching with him, went down upon the sidewalk. His antagonist was a heavier man than he was, but the steady brain and the trained muscles had the better of it from the first, and in a moment more the drunken man was choking and limp.

Courtland rose and looked about. The two fellows in the gutter were struggling to their feet with loud threats, and the fellow on the sidewalk was staggering toward him. They would be upon the girl again in a moment. He looked toward her, as she stood trembling a few feet away from him, too frightened to try to run, not daring to leave her protector. A street light fell directly upon her white face. It was Bonnie Brentwood!

With a kick at the man on the ground who was trying to rise, and a lurch at the man on the sidewalk who was coming toward him that sent him spinning again, Courtland dived under the clutching hands of the two in the gutter who couldn't quite make it to get upon the curb again. Snatching up the girl like a baby, he fled up the street and around the first corner, and all that cursing, drunken, reeling five came howling after!



CHAPTER XV

Courtland had run three blocks and turned two corners before he dared stop and set the girl upon her feet again. He looked anxiously at her white face and great, frightened eyes. Her lips were trembling and she was shivering. He tore his overcoat off, wrapped it about her, and before she could protest caught her up again and ran on another block or two.

"Oh, you must not!" she cried. "I can walk perfectly well, and I don't need your coat. Please, please put on your coat and let me walk! You will take a terrible cold!"

"I can run better without it," he explained, briefly, "and we can get out of the way of those fellows quicker this way!"

So she lay still in his arms till he put her down again. He looked up and down either way, hoping to see the familiar red-and-green lights of a drug-store open late; but none greeted him; all the buildings seemed to be residences.

Somewhere in the distance he heard the whir of a late trolley. He glanced at his watch. It was half past one. If only a taxicab would come along. But no taxi was in sight. The girl was begging him to put on his overcoat. She had drawn it from her own shoulders and was holding it out to him insistently. But with the rare smile that Courtland was noted for he took the coat and wrapped it firmly about her shoulders again, this time putting her arms in the sleeves and buttoning it up to the chin.

"Now," said he, "you're not to take that off again until we get where it is warm. You needn't worry about me. I'm quite used to going out in all weathers without my coat as often as with it. Besides, I've been exercising. When did you have something to eat?"

"When I left the hospital this evening. I had some strong beef-tea," she answered, airily, as if that had been only a few minutes before.

"How did you happen to be where I found you?" he asked, looking at her keenly.

"Why, I must have missed my way, I think," she explained, "and I felt a little weak from having been in bed so long. I just sat down on a door-step to rest a minute before I went on, and I'm afraid I must have fallen asleep."

"You were walking?" His tone was stern. "Why were you walking?"

A desperate look came into her face. "Well, I hadn't any car fare, if you must know the reason."

They were passing a street light as she said it, and he looked down at her fine little white profile in wonder and awe. He felt a sudden choking in his throat and a mist in his eyes. He had it on the tip of his tongue to say, "You poor little girl!" but instead he said, in a tone of intense admiration:

"Well, you certainly are the pluckiest girl I ever saw! You have your nerve with you all right! But you're not going to walk another step to-night!"

And with that he stooped, gathered her up again, and strode forward. He could hear the distant whir of another trolley, and he determined to take it, no matter which way it was going. It would take them somewhere and he could telephone for an ambulance. So he sprinted forward, regardless of her protests, and arrived at the next corner just in time to catch the car going cityward.

There was nobody else in the car and he made her keep the coat about her. He couldn't help seeing how worn and thin her little shabby shoes were, and how she shivered now even in the great coat. He saw she was just keeping up her nerve, and he was filled with admiration.

"Why did you run away from the hospital?" he asked, suddenly, looking straight into her sad eyes.

"I couldn't afford to stay any longer."

"You made a big mistake. It wouldn't have cost you a cent. That room was free. I made sure of that before I secured it for you."

"But that was a private room!"

"Just a little more private than the wards. That room was paid for and put at the disposal of the doctor to use for whoever he thought needed quiet. Now are you satisfied? And you are going straight back there till you are well enough to go out again! You raised a big row in the hospital, running away. They've had the whole force of assistants out hunting you for hours, and your nurse is awfully upset about you. She seems to be crazy over you, anyway. She nearly wept when she telephoned me. And I've been out for hours hunting you, stirred up the old lady on your floor at your home, and a lot of hospitals and other places, and then just came on you in the nick of time. I hope you've learned your lesson, to be a good little girl after this and not run away."

He smiled indulgently, but the girl's eyes were full of tears.

"I didn't mean to make all that trouble for people. Why should you all care about a stranger? But, oh! I'm so thankful you came! Those men were terrible!" She shuddered. "How did you happen to come there? I think God must have led you."

"He did!" said Courtland, with conviction.

When they reached the big city station he stowed his patient into a taxi and sent a messenger up to the restaurant for hot chicken broth, which he administered himself.

She lay back with her eyes closed after the broth was finished. He realized that she had reached the full limit of her endurance. She had forgotten even to protest against wearing his overcoat any longer.

It was a strange ride. The silent girl sat closely wrapped in her corner, fast asleep. The car bounded over obstacles now and then, or swung around corners and threw her about like a ball, but she did not waken; and finally Courtland drew her head down upon his shoulder and put his arm about her to keep her from being thrown out of her seat; and she settled down like a tired child. He could not help thinking of that other girl lying stark and dead in the morgue, and being glad that this one was safe.

Nurse Wright was hovering about the hallway when the taxi drew up to the entrance of the hospital, and Bonnie was tenderly cared for at once.

Courtland began to realize that this great hospital was an evidence of the Presence of Christ in the world! He was not the only one who had felt the Presence. Some one moved as he had been to-night had established this big house of healing. There on the opposite wall was a great stained-glass window representing Christ blessing the little children, and the people bringing the maimed and halt and lame and blind to Him for healing.

The quiet night routine went on about him; the strong, pervasive odor of antiseptics; the padded tap of the nurses' rubber soles as they went softly on their rounds; the occasional click of a glass and a spoon somewhere; the piteous wail of a suffering child in a distant ward; the sharp whir of an electric bell; the homely thud of the elevator on its errands up and down; even the controlled yet ready spring to service of all concerned when the ambulance rolled up and a man on a stretcher, with a ghastly cut in his head and face, was brought in; all made him feel how little and useless his life had been hitherto. How suddenly he had been brought face to face with realities!

He began to wonder if the Presence was everywhere, or if there were places where His power was not manifest. There had been the red library! There also had been that church last Sunday.

The office clock chimed softly out the hour of three o'clock. It was Sunday morning. Should he go to church again and search for the Presence, or make up his mind that the churches were out of it entirely and that it was only in places of need and sorrow and suffering that He came? Still, that was not fair to the churches, perhaps, to judge all by one. What an experience the night had been! Did Wittemore, majoring in philanthropy, ever spend nights like this? If so, there must be depths to Wittemore's nature that were worth sounding.

He drew his handkerchief from his inner pocket, and as he did so a whiff of violets came remindingly, but he paid no heed. Gila's letter lay in his pocket, still unread. The antiseptics were at work upon his senses and the violets could not reach him.

There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was in a tumble, but he looked good to Nurse Wright as she came down the hall at last to give him her report. She almost thought he was good enough for her Bonnie girl now. She wasn't given to romances, but she felt that Bonnie needed one most mightily about now.

"She didn't wake up except to open her eyes and smile once," she reported, reassuringly. "She coughs a little now and then, with a nasty sound in it, but I hope we can ward off pneumonia. It was great of you to put your overcoat around her. That saved her, if anything can, I guess. You look pretty well used up yourself. Wouldn't you like the doctor to give you something before you go home?"

"No, thank you. I'll be all right. I'm hard as nails. I'm only anxious about her. You see, she's had a pretty tough pull of it. She started to walk to the city! Did you know that? I fancy she'd gone about two miles. It was somewhere along near the river I found her. It seems she got "all in" and sat down on a door-step to rest. She must have fallen asleep. Some tough fellows came out of a saloon—they were full, of course—and they discovered her. I heard her scream, and we had quite a little scuffle before we got away. She's a nervy little girl. Think of her starting to walk to the city at that time of night, without a cent in her pocket!"

"The poor child!" said Nurse Wright, with tears in her kind, keen eyes. "And she left her last cent here to pay for her room! My! When I think of it I could choke that smart young snob that called on her in the afternoon! You ought to have heard her sneers and her insinuations. Women like that are a blight on womanhood! And she dared to mention your name—said you had sent her!"

The color heightened in Courtland's face. He felt uncomfortable. "Why, I—didn't exactly send her," he began, uneasily. "I don't really know her very well. You see, I'm just a student at the university and of course I don't know a great many girls in the city. I thought it would be nice if some girl would call on Miss Brentwood; she seemed so alone. I thought another girl would understand and be able to comfort her."

"She isn't a girl, that's what's the matter with her; she's a little demon!" snapped the nurse. "You meant well, and I dare say she never showed you the demon side of her. Girls like that don't—to young men. But if you take my advice you won't have anything more to do with her! She isn't worth it! She may be rich and fashionable and all that, but she can't hold a candle to Miss Brentwood! If you had just heard how she went on, with her nasty little chin in the air and her nasty phrases and insinuations, and her patronage! And then Miss Brentwood's gentle, refined way of answering her! But never mind, I won't go into that! It might take me all night, and I've got to go back to my patient. But you are not to blame yourself one particle. I hope Miss Brentwood's going to get through this all right in a few days, and she'll probably have forgotten all about it, so don't you worry. I think it would be a good thing if you were to come in and see her to-morrow afternoon a few minutes. It might cheer her up. You really have been fine, you know! No telling where she might have been by this time if you hadn't gone out after her!"

The young man shuddered involuntarily, and thought of the faces of the five young fellows who had surrounded her.

"I saw a little girl in the morgue to-night, drowned!" he said, irrelevantly. "She wasn't any older than Miss Brentwood."

The nurse gave an understanding look. On her way back to her rounds she said to herself: "I believe he's a real man! If I hadn't thought so I wouldn't have told him he might come and see her to-morrow!"

Then she went into Bonnie's room, took the letter with the Western postmark, and stood it up against a medicine-glass on the little table beside the bed, where Bonnie could see it the first thing when she opened her eyes.



CHAPTER XVI

A little after four o'clock, when Courtland came plodding up the hall of the dormitory to his room, a head was stuck out of Tennelly's door, followed by Tennelly's shoulders attired in a bath-robe. The hair on the head was much tumbled and the eyes were full of sleep. Moreover, there was an anxious, relieved frown on the brows.

"Where in thunder've you been, Court? We were thinking of dragging the river for you. I must say you're the limit! Do you know what time it is?"

"Five minutes after four by the library clock as I came up," answered Courtland, affably. "Say, Nelly, go to church with me again this morning? I've found another preacher I want to sample."

"Go to thunder!" growled Tennelly. "Not on your tin-type! I'm going to get some sleep. What do you take me for? A night nurse? Go to church when I've been up all night hunting for you?"

"Sorry, Nelly," said Courtland, cheerfully, "but it was an emergency call. Tell you about it on the way to church. Church don't begin till somewhere round 'leven. You'll be calm by that time. So long! See you in church!"

Tennelly slammed his door hard, and Courtland went smiling to his room. He knew that Tennelly would go with him to church. For Courtland had seen among the advertisements in the trolley on his way back to the university, the notice of a service to be held in a church away down in the lower part of the city, to be addressed by the Rev. John Burns, and he wanted to go. It might not be the John Burns of course, but he wanted to see.

Worn out with the events of the night, he slept soundly until ten. Then, as if he had been an alarm-clock set for a certain moment, he awoke.

He lay there for a moment in the peace of the consciousness of something good that had come to him. Then he knew that it was the Presence. It was there, in his room. It would always be his. There might be laws attending its coming and going—perhaps in some way concerned with his own attitude—but he would learn them. It was enough to know the possibility of that companionship all the days of one's life.

He couldn't reason out why a thing like that should give him so much joy. It didn't seem sensible in the old way of reasoning—and yet, didn't it? If it could be proved to the fellows that there was really a God like that, companionable, reasonable, just, loving, forgiving, ready to give Himself, wouldn't every one of them jump at the chance of knowing Him personally, provided there was a way for them to know Him? They claimed it had never been proved, never could be. But he knew it could. It had been proved to him! That was the difference. That was the greatness of it! And now he was going to church again to find out if the Presence was ever there!

With a bound he was out of bed, shaved and dressed in an incredibly short space of time, and, shouting to Tennelly, who took his feet reluctantly from the window-seat, lowered the Sunday paper, and replied, sulkily:

"Thunder and blazes! Who waked you up, you nut! I thought you were good for another two hours!"

But they went to church.

Tennelly sat down on the hard wooden bench and accepted the worn hymn-book that a small urchin presented him, with an amused stare which finally bloomed into a full grin at Courtland.

"What's eating you, you blooming idiot! Where in thunder did you rake up this dump, anyway? If you've got to go to church, why in the name of all that's a bore can't you pick out a place where the congregation take a bath once a month whether they need it or not?" he whispered, in a loud growl.

But Courtland's eyes were already fixed on the bright, intelligent face and red hair of the man who stood behind the cheap little pulpit. He was the same John Burns! A window just behind the platform, set with crude red and blue and yellow lights of cheap glass, sent its radiance down, upon his head, and the yellow bar lay across his hair like a halo; behind him, in the colored lights, there seemed to stand the Presence. It was so vivid to Courtland at first that he drew in his breath and looked sharply at Tennelly, as if he, too, must see, though he knew there was nothing visible, of course, but the lights, the glory, and the little, freckled, earnest man giving out a hymn.

And the singing! If one were looking for discord, well, it was there, every shade of it that the world had ever known! There were quavering old voices, and piping young ones; off the key and on the key, squeaking, grating, screaming, howling, with all their earnest might, but the melody lifted itself in a great voice on high and seemed to bear along the spirit of the congregation.

"I need Thee every hour. Stay Thou near by; Temptations lose their power When Thou art nigh. I need Thee, oh I, need Thee, Every hour I need Thee; O bless me now, my Saviour, I come to Thee!"

These people, then, knew about the Presence, loved it, longed for it, understood its power! They sang of the Presence and were glad! There were, then, others in the world who knew, besides himself and Stephen and Stephen Marshall's mother! Without knowing what he was doing, Courtland sang. He did not know the words, but he felt the spirit, and he groped along in syllables as he caught them.

Tennelly sat gazing around him, highly amused, not attempting to suppress his mirth. His eyes fairly danced as he observed first one absorbed worshiper, and then another, intent upon the song. He fancied himself taking off the old elder on the other side of the aisle, and the intense young woman with the large mouth and the feather in her hat. Her voice was killing. He could make the fellows die laughing, singing as she did, in a high falsetto.

He looked at Courtland to enjoy it with him, and lo! Courtland was singing with as much earnestness as the rest; and upon his face there sat a high, exalted look that he had never seen there before. Was it true that the fire and the sickness had really affected Court's mind, after all? He had seemed so like his old self lately that they had all hoped he was getting over it.

During the prayer Courtland dropped his head and closed his eyes. Tennelly glanced around and marveled amusedly at the serious attitude of all. Even a row of tough-looking kids on the back seats had at least one eye apiece squinted shut during the prayer, and almost an atmosphere of reverence upon them.

Tennelly prided himself upon being a student of human nature, and before he knew it he was interested in this mass of common people about him. But now and again his gaze went uneasily back to Courtland, whose eyes were fixed intently upon the preacher, as if the words he spoke were of real importance to him.

Tennelly sat back in wonder and tried to listen. It was all about a mysterious companionship with God, stuff that sounded like "rot" to him; uncanny, unreal, mystical, impossible! Could it be true that Court, their peach of a Court, whose sneer and criticism alike had been dreaded by all who came beneath them—could it be that so sensible and scholarly and sane a mind as Court's could take up with a superstition like that? For it was to Tennelly foolishness.

He owned to a certain amount of interest in the emotional side of the sermon. It was true that the little man could sway that uncouth audience mightily. He felt himself swayed in the tenderer side of his nature, but of course his superior mind realized that it was all emotion; interesting as a study, but not to be taken seriously for a moment. It wasn't a healthy thing for Court to see much of this sort of thing. All this talk of a cross, and one dying for all! Mere foolishness and superstition! Very beautiful, and perhaps allegorical, but not at all practical!

The minister was down by the door before they got out, and grasped Courtland's hand as if he were an old friend, and then turned and grasped Tennelly's. There was something so genuine and sincere about his face that Tennelly decided that he must really believe all that junk he had been preaching, after all. He wasn't a fake, he was merely a good, wholesome sort of a fanatic. He bowed pleasantly and said a few commonplaces as he passed out.

"Seems to be a good sort," he murmured to Courtland. "Pity he's tied down to that sort of thing!"

Courtland looked at him sharply. "Is that the way you feel about it, Nelly?" There was something half wistful in his tone.

Tennelly looked at him sharply. "Why, sure! I think he's a bigger man than his job, don't you?"

"Then you didn't feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"The Presence of God in that place!"

There was something so simple and majestic about the way Courtland made the extraordinary statement—not as a common fanatic would make it, nor even as one who was testing and feeling around for confirmation of a hope, but as one who knew it to be a fact beyond questioning, which the other merely hadn't been able to see—that Tennelly was almost embarrassed.

"Why—I— Why—no! I can't say that I noticed any particular manifestation. I was entirely too much taken up by the smell to observe the occult. Say, what's eating you, anyway, Court? Such foolishness isn't like you. You ought to cut it out. You know a thing like this can get on your nerves if you let it, just like anything else, and make you a monomaniac. You ought to go in for more athletics and cut out some of your psychology and philosophy. Suppose we go and take a ride in the park this afternoon. It's a great day."

"I don't mind riding in the park for a while after dinner. I've got a date about four o'clock. But I'm not a monomaniac, Nelly, and nothing's getting on my nerves. I never felt better or happier in my life. I feel as if I'd been blind always, been sort of groping my way, and had just got my eyes open to see what a wonderful thing life really is."

"Do you mean you've got what they used to call 'religion,' Court? 'Hit the trail,' as it were?" Tennelly asked as if he were delicately inquiring about some insidious tubercular or cancerous trouble. He seemed half ashamed to connect such a perilous possibility with his honored friend.

Courtland shook his head. "Not that I know of, Nelly. I never attended one of those big evangelistic meetings in my life, and I don't know exactly what 'religion,' as they call it, is, so I can't lay claim to anything of that sort. What I mean is, simply, I've met God face to face and found He's my friend. That's about the size of it, and it makes things all look different. I'd like to tell you about it just as it happened some time, Tennelly, when you're ready to hear."

"Wait awhile, Court," said Tennelly, half shrinking. "Wait till you've had a little more time to think it over. Then if you like I'll listen."

"Very well," said Courtland, quietly. "But I want you to know it's something real. It's no sick fancies."

"All right!" said Tennelly. "I'll let you know when I'm ready to hear."

* * * * *

Late that afternoon, when Courtland entered the hospital, the sunshine was flooding the great stained-glass window and glorifying the face of the Christ with the outstretched hands. Off in a near-by ward some one was singing to the patients, and the corridors seemed hushed to listen:

The healing of the seamless dress Is by our beds of pain. We touch Him in life's throng and press And we are whole again!

All this recognition of the Christ in the world, and somehow it had never come to his consciousness before! He felt abashed at his blindness. And if he had been so long, surely there was hope for Tennelly to see, too. Somehow, he wanted Tennelly to see!



CHAPTER XVII

Bonnie Brentwood was awake and expecting him, the nurse said. She lay propped up by pillows, draped about with a dainty, frilly dressing-sacque that looked too frivolous for Nurse Wright, yet could surely have come from no other source. The golden hair was lying in two long braids, one over each shoulder, and there was a faint flush of expectancy on her pale cheeks.

"You have been so good to me!" she said. "It has been wonderful for a stranger to go out of his way so much."

"Please don't let's talk about that!" said Courtland. "It's been only a pleasure to be of service. Now I want to know how you are. I've been expecting to hear that you had pneumonia or something dreadful after that awful exposure."

"Oh, I've been through a good deal more than that," said the girl, trying to speak lightly. "Things don't seem to kill me. I've had quite a lot of hard times."

"I'm afraid you have," he said, gravely. "Somehow it doesn't seem fair that you should have had such a rotten time of it, and I be lying around enjoying myself. Shouldn't everybody be treated alike in this world? I confess I don't understand it."

Bonnie smiled feebly. "Oh, it's all right!" she said, with conviction. "'In the world ye shall have tribulation, but fear not, I have overcome the world,' you know. It's our testing-time, and this world isn't the only part of life."

"Well, but I don't see how that answers my point," said Courtland, pleasantly. "What's the idea? Don't you think I am worth the testing?"

"Oh, surely, but you may not need the same kind I did."

"You don't appear to me to have needed any testing. So far as I can judge, you've showed the finest kind of nerve on every occasion."

"Oh, but I do," said Bonnie, earnestly. "I've needed it dreadfully! You don't know how hard I was getting—sort of soured on the world! That was the reason I came away from the old home where my father's church was and where all the people I knew were. I couldn't bear to see them. They had been so hard on my dear father that I thought they were the cause of his death. I had begun to feel that there weren't any real Christians left in the world. God had to bring me away off here into trouble again to find out how good people are. He sent you to help me, and Nurse Wright; and now to-day the most wonderful thing has happened! I've had a letter from an utter stranger, asking me to come and visit. I want you to read it, please."

While Courtland read Mother Marshall's letter Bonnie lay studying him. And truly he was a goodly sight. No girl in her senses could look a man like that over and not know he was a man and a fine one. But Bonnie had no romantic thoughts. Life had dealt too hardly with her for her to have any illusions left. She had no idea of her own charms, nor any thought of making much of the situation. That was why Gila's insinuations had cut so terribly deep.

"She's a peach, isn't she?" he said, handing the letter back. "How soon does the doctor think you'll be able to travel?"

"Oh, I couldn't possibly go," said the girl, relapsing into sadness; "but I think it was lovely of her."

"Go? Of course you must go!" cried Courtland, springing to his feet, as if he had been accustomed to manage this girl's affairs for years. "Why, Mother Marshall would be just broken-hearted if you didn't!"

"Mother Marshall!" exclaimed Bonnie, sitting up from her pillows in astonishment. "You know her, then?"

Courtland stopped suddenly in his excited march across the room and laughed ruefully. "Well, I've let the cat out of the bag after all, haven't I? Yes, then, I know her! It was I who told her about you. And I had a letter from her two days ago, saying she was crazy to have you come. Why, she's just counting the minutes till she gets your telegram! You haven't sent her word you aren't coming, have you?"

"Not yet," said Bonnie. "I was going to ask you what would be the best way to do. You see, I have to send back that money and the mileage. Don't you think it would do to write? It costs a great deal to telegraph, and sounds so abrupt when one has had such a royal invitation. It was lovely of her, but of course you know I couldn't be under obligation like that to entire strangers."

There was a little stiffness in Bonnie's last words, and a cool withdrawal in her eyes that brought Courtland to his senses and made him remember Gila's insinuations.

"Look here!" he said, calming down and taking his chair again. "You don't understand, and I guess I ought to explain. In the first place get it out of your head that I'm acting fresh or anything like that. I'm only a kind of big brother that happened along two or three times when you needed somebody—a—a kind of a Christ-brother, if you want to call it that way," he added, snatching at the minister's phrase. "You believe He sends help when it's needed, don't you?"

Bonnie nodded.

"Well, I hadn't an idea in the world of interfering with your affairs at all, but when I heard you ought to rest, I began to wish I had a mother of my own, or an aunt or something who would know what to advise. Then all of a sudden I thought I'd just put the case up to Mother Marshall. This is the result. Now wait till I tell you what Mother Marshall has been through, and then if you don't decide that God sent that invitation I've nothing else to say."

Courtland had a reputation at college for eloquence. In rushing season his frat. always counted on him to bowl over the doubtful and difficult fellows, and he never failed. Neither did he fail now, although he found Bonnie difficult enough. But he had her eyes full of tears of sympathy before he was through with the story of Stephen.

"Oh, I would love to see her and put my arms around her and try to comfort her!" she exclaimed. "I know just how she must feel. But I really couldn't use the money of a stranger, and I couldn't go away with all this debt, the funeral, and everything!"

Then he set carefully to work to plan for her. He read Mother Marshall's letter over again, and asked what things she would need to take if she should go. He wrote out a list of the things she would like to sell, and promised to look after them.

"Suppose you just leave that to me," he said, comfortingly. "I'll wager I can get enough out of your furniture to pay all the bills, so you won't leave any behind. Then if I were you I'd just use that check they've sent for your expenses, and trust to getting a position, in that neighborhood when you are strong enough. There are always openings in the West, you know."

"Do you really think I could do that?" asked Bonnie, excitedly. "I'm a good stenographer, I've had a really fine musical education, and I could teach a number of other things."

"Oh, sure! You'd get more positions than you could fill at once!" he declared, joyously. Somehow it gave him great pleasure to be succeeding so well.

"Then I could soon pay them back," said Bonnie, reflectively.

"Sure! You could pay back in no time after you got strong. That would be a cinch! It might even be that you could help Mother Marshall about something in the house pretty soon. And I'm sure you'll find she just needs you. Now suppose we write up that telegram. There's no need to keep the dear lady waiting any longer."

"He thinks I really ought to go," said Bonnie to the nurse, who had just returned.

"Didn't I tell you so, dear?" said the nurse.

"How soon would the doctor let her travel?" asked Courtland.

"Why, I'll go ask him. You want to put it in your message, don't you?"

"She's a dear!" said Bonnie, with a tender look after her.

"Isn't she a peach!" seconded Courtland, enthusiastically.

The nurse was back almost at once, reporting that Bonnie might travel by the middle of the week if all went well.

"But could I get ready to go so soon?" said the girl, a shade of trouble coming into her eyes. "I must go back and pack up my things, you know, and clean the room."

Courtland and the nurse exchanged meaningful glances.

"Now look here!" began Courtland, with his engaging smile. "Why couldn't the nurse and I do all that's necessary? How about to-morrow afternoon? Could you get off awhile, Miss Wright? I don't have any basket-ball practice till Tuesday, and I could get off right after dinner. Miss Brentwood, you could tell the nurse just what you want done with your things, and I'll warrant she and I have sense enough to pack up one little room."

After some persuasion Bonnie half consented, and then they attended to the telegram.

Your wonderful invitation accepted with deep gratitude. Will start as soon as able. Probably Wednesday night. Will write.

ROSE BONNER BRENTWOOD.

was what they finally evolved. Bonnie had been divided between a desire to save words and a longing to show her appreciation of the kindness.

But the strangest thing of all was that, in his eagerness, the paper Courtland fumbled out from his pocket to write it upon was Gila Dare's unopened letter, reeking with violets. He frowned as he realized it, and stuffed it back in his pocket again.

Courtland enjoyed sending that telegram. He enjoyed it so much that he sent another along with it on his own account, which read:

Three cheers for the best mother in the United States! She's coming and you ought to see her eyes shine!

It was on the way back to the university that he happened to remember Gila's letter.



CHAPTER XVIII

MY DEAR MR. COURTLAND:

The very first line translated Courtland into another world from the one in which he had been living during the past three days. Its perfumed breath struck harshly on his soul.

I am writing to report on the case of the poor girl whom you asked me to help. I was very anxious to please you and did my best; but you remember that I warned you that persons of that sort were likely to be most difficult and ungrateful—indeed, quite impossible sometimes. And so, perhaps, you will be somewhat prepared for the disappointing report I have to give.

I went to the hospital this afternoon, putting off several engagements to do so. I was quite surprised to find the girl in a private room, but of course your kindness made that possible for her, which makes her utter ingratitude all the more unpardonable.

I took with me several very pretty frocks of my own, quite good, some of them scarcely worn at all, for I know girls of that sort care more for clothes than anything else. But I found her quite sullen and disagreeable. She wouldn't look at the things I had brought, although I suggested several ways in which I intended to help her and make it possible for her to have a few friends of her own class who would make her forget her troubles. She just lay and stared at me and said, quite impertinently, that she didn't remember ever having met me. And when I mentioned your name she denied ever having seen you. She even dared to ask me to leave the room. And the nurse was most insulting.

But don't worry about it in the least, for papa has promised to have the nurse removed at once from her position, and blacklisted, so that she can't ever get another place in a decent hospital.

I am afraid you will be disappointed in your protegee, and I am awfully sorry, for I would have enjoyed doing her good; but you see how impossible it was.

You are not to feel put out that I was treated that way, for I really enjoyed doing something for you; and you know it is good for one to suffer sometimes. I'll be delighted to go slumming for you any time again that you say, and please don't mind asking me. It's much better for me to look after any girls that need help than it is for you, because girls of that sort are so likely to impose upon a young man's sympathies.

My cousin has been telling me how you have been looking after some of the work of a student who is majoring in sociology, so I'm beginning to understand why you took this girl up. I do hope you'll let me help. Suppose you run over this evening and we can talk it over. I'm giving up two whole engagements to stay at home for you, so I hope you will properly appreciate it, and if anything hinders your coming, would you mind calling up and letting me know?

Hoping to see you this evening, Your true friend and fellow-worker, GILA DARE.

The letter struck a false note in the harmony of the day. It annoyed Courtland beyond expression that he had made such a blunder as to send Gila after Bonnie. He could not understand why Gila had not had better discernment than to think Bonnie an object of charity. His indignation was still burning over the trouble and peril her action had brought to Bonnie. Yet he hated to have his opinion of Gila shaken. He had arranged it in his mind that she was a sweet and lovely girl, one in every way similar to Solveig the innocent, and he did not care to change it. He tried to remember Gila's conventional upbringing, and realize that she had no conception of a girl out of her own social circle other than as a menial to whom to condescend. The vision of her loveliness in rose and silver, with her prayer-book "in her 'kerchief" was still dimly forcing him to be at least polite and accept her letter of apology for her failure, as he could but suppose it was sincerely meant.

Then all at once a new fact dawned upon him. The invitation had been for Saturday evening! This was Sunday evening! And now what was he to do? He might call her up and apologize, but what could he say. Bill Ward might have told her by this time that he knew the letter had been received. A blunt confession that he had forgotten to read it might offend, yet what else could he do? It was most annoying!

He went to the telephone as soon as he reached the college. The fellows had already gone down to the evening meal. He could hear the clink of china and silver in the distant dining-room. It was a good time to 'phone.

A moment, and Gila's cool contralto answered: "Hel-lo-oo!" There was something about the way that Gila said that word that conveyed a whole lot of things, instantly putting the caller at his distance, but placing the lady on a pedestal before which it became most desirable to bow.

"This is Paul Courtland!"

"Oh! Mr. Courtland!" Her voice was freezing.

But Courtland was not used to being frozen out. "I owe you an apology, Miss Dare," he said, with dignity. He didn't care how blunt he sounded now. It always angered him to be frozen! "Your letter reached me just as I was leaving here last evening on a very important errand. I put it in my pocket, but I have been so occupied that it escaped my mind utterly until just now. I hope I did not cause you much inconvenience."

"Oh, it really didn't mattah in the least!" answered Gila, indifferently. Nothing could be colder or more distant than her voice, and yet there was something in it this time, a subtle lure, that exasperated. A teasing little something at his spirit demanded to be set right in her eyes—to have her the suppliant rather than himself.

"I really am awfully ashamed," he said, in quite a boyish, humble tone, and then gasped at himself. What was there about Gila that always "got a fellow's goat"?

After that Gila had the conversation quite where she wanted it, and finally she told him sweetly that he might come over this evening if he chose. She had other engagements, but she would break them all for him.

"Suppose you go to church with me this evening," he temporized. "I've found a minister I'd like to have you hear. He's quite original!"

There was a distinct pause at the other end of the 'phone, while Gila's little white teeth came cruelly into her red under lip, and her pearly forehead drew the straight, black, penciled brows naughtily. Then she answered, in sweetly honeyed tones:

"Why, that would be lovely! Perhaps I will. What time do we start?"

Something in her tone annoyed him, despite his satisfaction at having induced her to be friends again. Almost it sounded like a false note in the day again. He hadn't expected her to go. Now she was going, he was very sure he didn't want her.

"I warn you that it is among very common people in the lower part of the city," he said, almost severely.

"Oh, that's all right!" she declared, graciously. "I'm sure it will be dandy! I certainly do enjoy new experiences!"

He hung up the 'phone with far greater misgivings than he had felt when he asked her to call on Bonnie.

Bill Ward was called out of the dining-room to the telephone almost as soon as Courtland got down to the table.

It was Gila on the phone: "Is that you Bill? Well, Bill, this is Gila. Say, what in the name of peace have you let me in for now? I hope to goodness mamma won't find it out. She'd have a pink fit! Say! is this a joke, or what? I believe you're putting one over on me!"

"Search me, Gila! I'm all in the dark! Give me a line on it and I'll tell you."

"Well, what do you think that crazy nut has pulled off now? Wants me to go to church with him! Of all things! And down in some queer slum place, too! If I get into a scrape you'll have to promise to help me out, or mamma'll never let me free from a chaperon again. And I had to make Artley Guelpin, and Turner Bailey sore, too, by telling them I was sick and they couldn't come and try over those new dance-steps to-night as I'd promised. If I get into the papers or anything I'll have a long score to settle with you."

"Oh, cut that out, Gila! You'll not get into any scrape with Court. He's all right. He's only nuts about religion just now, and seems to be set on sampling all kinds of churches. Say! that's a good one, though, for you to go to church with him! I must tell the fellows. Keep it up, Guile, old girl! You'll pull the fat out of the fire yet. You're just the one to go along and counteract the pious line. You should worry about Artley Guelpin and Turner Bailey! You can't keep either of them sore; they haven't got back bone enough to stay so. If it's the same dump Court took Tennelly to this morning you'll get your money's worth, all right. Nelly said it was a scream."

Bill Ward came back, grinning from ear to ear. Every few minutes during the rest of the meal he broke out in a broad grin and looked at Courtland, who was absorbed in his own thoughts; and then he would slap Tennelly on the shoulder and say: "Ho! boy! It's a rare one!" But it was not until Courtland had hurried away after his lady that Bill gave forth his information.

"Oh, Nelly!" he burst forth. "Court's going to take Gila to church! You don't suppose he'll take her to that dump where he led you this morning, do you? I can see her nose go up now. I thought I'd croak when she told me! Wait till you hear her call me up on the 'phone when she gets home! She'll give me the worst balling out I ever had! And Aunt Nina would have apoplexy if she knew her 'darlin' pet' was going into that part of town! Oh, boy! Set me on my feet or I'll die laughing!"

Tennelly regarded Bill Ward with solemn consternation. "Do you mean to tell me that Court has asked your cousin to go to that camp-meeting hole where he took me this morning? Cut out the kidding and tell me straight! Well, then, Bill, it's serious, and we've got to do something! We can't have a fellow like Court spoiled for life. He's gone stale, that's what's the matter; he's gone stale! He's got to have strenuous measures to pull him up."

"He sure has!" said Bill Ward, soberly, getting up from the couch where he had been rolling in his mirth. "What can we do? What about these business ambitions of his? Couldn't we work him that way? For Court's got a great head on him, you know! I thought Gila would do the business, but if he's rung in religion on her it's all up, I'm afraid. But business is a different thing. Not even Court could mix business and religion, for they won't fit together!"

"That's the trouble," said Tennelly, thoughtfully. "If it gets out what's the matter with Court he won't stand half a chance. I was thinking of my uncle Ramsey, out in Chicago. He has large financial interests in the West; he often wants promising men to take charge of some big thing, and it means a dandy opening; big money and no end of social and political pull to get into one of his berths. He's promised me one when I'm done college, and I was going to talk to him about Court. He's twice the man I am and just what Uncle Ramsey wants. He's coming on East next week, and likely to stop over. I might see what I can do."

"That's just the thing, Nelly. Go to it, old man! Write unc. a letter to-night. Nothing like giving a lot of dope beforehand."

"That's an idea! I will!" and Tennelly went to his desk and began to write.

Meantime Gila awaited Courtland's coming, attired in a most startling costume of blue velvet and ermine, with high laced white kid boots, and a hat that resembled a fresh, white setting-hen, tied down to her pert little face with a veil whose large-meshed surface was broken by a single design, a large black butterfly anchored just across her dainty little nose. A most astonishing costume in which to appear in the Rev. John Burns's unpretentious little church crowded with the canaille of the city!

It was the first time that Courtland had ever felt that Gila was a little loud in her dress!



CHAPTER XIX

Mother Marshall got strenuously to her feet from the low hassock on which she had been sitting to sew the carpet, and trotted to the head of the stairs.

"Father!" she called, happily. "Oh, Father! It's all done! I just set the last stitch. You can bring your hammer and tacks. Better bring your rubbers, too. You'll need them when you come to stretch it."

Father hurried up so quickly it was clear he had the hammer and rubbers all ready.

"You'll need a saucer to put the tacks in!" and Mother Marshall hustled away to get it. When she came back the carpet was spread out smoothly and Father stood surveying the effect.

"Say, now, it looks real pretty, don't it?" he said, looking up at the walls and down to the floor.

"It certainly does!" declared Mother Marshall. "And I'm real glad the man made us take this plain pink paper. It didn't look much to me when he first brought it out, I must confess. I had set my heart on stripes with pink roses in it. But when he said 'felt,' why that settled it because that article in the magazine said felt papers were the best for general wear and satisfaction. And then when he brought out that roll with the cherry blossoms on it for a stripe around the top, I was just all happy down my spine, it did look so kind of bridey and pretty, like our cherry orchard on a spring evening when the pink is in the sky. And that white molding between 'em is going to be real handy to hang the pictures on. The man gave me some little brass picture-hooks. See, they fit right over the molding. Of course, there isn't but one picture, but she'll maybe have some of her own and like it all the better if the wall isn't all cluttered full. You know the magazine said have 'a few good pictures.' I mean to hang it up right now and see how it looks! There! Doesn't that look pretty against the pink? I wasn't sure about the white frame, it was so plain, but I like it. Those apple blossoms against that blue piece of sky look real natural, don't they. You like it, don't you, Father?"

"Well, I should say I did," said Father, as he scuffed a corner of the carpet into place with his rubbered feet. "Say, this carpet is some thick, Mother, as I guess your fingers will testify, having sewed all those long seams. 'Member how Stevie used to sit on the carpet ahead of your seams when he was a baby, and laugh and clap his hands when you couldn't sew any further because he was in the way?"

"Yes, wasn't he the sweetest baby!" said Mother Marshall, with a bright tear glinting suddenly down her cheek. "Why, Father, sometimes I can't really make it seem true that he's all done with this life and gone ahead of us into the next one. It won't be hard dying, for us, because he's there, and we sha'n't have to think of leaving him behind to go through a lot of trials and things."

"Well, I guess he's pretty happy seeing you chirk up so, Mother. You know what he'd have thought of all this! Why he'd have just rejoiced in it! He hated so to have you left alone all day. Don't you mind how he used to wish he had a sister? Say, Mother, you just stand on that corner there till I get this tack in straight. This edge is so tremenjus thick! I don't know as the tacks are long enough. What was you figuring to do with the book-shelves, put books in, or leave 'em empty for her things?"

"Well, I thought about that, and I made out we'd better put in some books so it wouldn't look so empty. We can take them out again if she has a lot of her own!"

"We could put in some of Stephen's that he set such store by. There's all that set of Scott, and Dickens, and those other fellows that he wanted us to start and read evenings this winter. By the way, Mother, we'd ought to get at that! Perhaps she'll like to read aloud when she comes! That would about suit us. We're rather old to begin loud reading, Steve's always read to us so long. I don't know but I'd buy a few new books, too. She's a girl you know, and you might find something lately written that she'd like. It wouldn't do any harm to get a few. You could ask the book-store man what to pick out—say a shelf or two."

"Oh, I shouldn't need to do that!" said Mother, hurrying away to get her magazine, which was never far away these last two or three days. "There's a whole long list here of books 'your young people will want to have in their library.' Wells and Shaw and Ibsen, and a lot of others I never heard of, but these first three I remembered because Stephen spoke of them in one of his first letters about college. Don't you know he was studying a course with those men's books in it? He said he didn't know as he was always going to agree with all they said, but they were big, broad men, and had some fine thoughts. He thought sometimes they hadn't just got the inner light about God and the Bible and all, but they were the kind of men who were getting there, striving after truth, and would likely find it and hand it out to the world again when they got it; like the wise men hunting everywhere for a Saviour. Don't you remember, Father?"

"I remember!" Father tried to speak cheerily, but his breath ended in a sigh, for the carpet was heavy. Mother looked at him sharply and changed the subject. It wasn't always easy to keep Father cheerful about Stephen's going.

"You don't suppose we could get those curtains up to-night, too, do you?"

"Why, I reckon!" said Father, stopping for a puff of breath and looking up to the white woodwork at the top of the windows. "You got 'em all ready to put up, all sewed and everything? Why, I reckon I could put up those rods after I get across this end, and then you could slip the curtains on while I was doing the rest. You don't want to get too tired, Mother. You know you been sewing a long time to-day."

"Oh, I'm not tired! I'm just childish enough to want to see how it's all going to look. Say, Father, that wasn't the telephone ringing, was it? You don't think we might get a telegram yet to-night?"

"Not scarcely!" said Father, with his mouth full of tacks. "You see, it's been bad weather, and like as not your letter got storm-stayed a day or so. You mustn't count on hearing 'fore Monday I guess."

They both knew that that letter ought to have reached the hospital where Bonnie Brentwood was supposed to be about six o'clock that evening, for so they had calculated the time between Stephen's letters to a nicety; but each was engaged in trying to keep the other from getting anxious about the telegram that did not come. For it was now half past eight by the kitchen clock, and both of them were as nervous as fleas listening for that telephone to ring that would decide the fate of the pretty pink room, whether it was to have an occupant or not.

"These white madras curtains look like there's been a frost on a cobweb, don't they?" said Mother Marshall, holding up a pair all arranged upon the brass rod ready to hang. "And just see how pretty this pink stuff looks against it. I declare it reminds me of the sunset light on the snow in the orchard out the kitchen window evenings when I was watching for Steve to come home from school. Say, Father, don't you think those book-shelves look cozy each side of the bay window? And wasn't it clever of Jed Lewis to think of putting hinges to the covers on that window-seat? She can keep lots of things in there! Wait till I get those two pink silk cushions you made me buy. My! Father, but you and I are getting extravagant in our old age! and all for a girl that may never even answer our letter!"

There was a kind of sob in the end of Mother Marshall's words that she tried to disguise, but Father caught it and flew to the rescue.

"There now, Mother!" he said, getting laboriously up from the carpet, hammer in hand, and putting his arms tenderly about her. "There now, Mother! Don't you go fretting! You see, like as not she was asleep when the letter got there, and they wouldn't wake her up, or mebbe it would be too much excitement for her at night that way! And then, again, if the mail-train was late it wouldn't get into the night deliv'ry. You know that happened once for Steve and he was real worried about us! Then they might not have deliv'ry at the hospital on Sunday, and she couldn't get it till Monday morning! See? And there's another thing you got to calcl'ate on, too! You never thought of that! She might be too sick yet to read a letter, or think what to say to it! So just you be patient, Mother! We'll just have that much more time to fix things; for, so to speak, now we haven't got any limitations on what we think she is. We can just plan for her like she was perfect. When we get her telegram we'll get some idea, and begin to know the real girl, but now we've just got our own notion of her."

"Why, of course!" choked Mother, smiling. "I'm just afraid, Seth, that I'm getting set on her coming, and that isn't right at all, you know, because she mightn't be coming."

"Well, and then again she might. Howsomenever, we'll have this room fixed up company fine, and if she don't come we'll just come here and camp for a week, you and me, and pretend we're out visiting. How would that do? Say, it's real pretty here, like spring in the orchard, ain't it, Mother? Well, now, you figure out what you're going to have for bureau fixings, and I'll get back to my tacking. I want to get done to-night and get that pretty white furniture moved in. You're sure the enamel is perfectly dry on that bed? That was the last piece he worked on. I think Jed made a pretty good job of it, for such quick work. Don't you? Got a clean counterpane, and one of your pink-and-white patchwork quilts for in here, haven't you, and a posy pin-cushion? My! but I'd like to know what she says when she sees it first!"

And so the two old dears jollied each other along till far past their bedtime; and when at last they lay quiet for the night Mother raised up in the moonlight that was flooding her side of the room and looked cautiously over to the other side of the bed:

"Father! You awake yet?"

"Yes!" sleepily.

"What'll we do about going to church to-morrow? The telegram might come while we're gone, and then we'd never know what she answered."

"Oh, they'd call up again until they got us. And, anyhow, we'd call them up when we got back and ask if any message had come yet?"

"Oh! Would we?" and Mother Marshall lay down with a sigh of relief, marveling, as she often had, at the superior knowledge in little technical details that men so often displayed. Of course in the real vital things of life women had to be on hand to make things move smoothly, but just a little thing like that, now, that needed a bit of what seemed almost superfluous information, a man always knew; and you wondered how he knew, because nobody ever seemed to have taught him! So at last Mother Marshall slept.

Anxious inquiry of the telephone after church brought forth no telegram. Dinner was a strained and artificial affair, preceded by a wistful but submissive blessing on the meal. Then the couple settled down in their comfortable chairs, one each side of the telephone, and tried to read, but somehow the hours dragged slowly.

"There's that pair of Grandmother Marshall's andirons up in the attic!" said Mother Marshall, looking up suddenly over the top of the Sunday school Times.

"I'll bring them down the first thing in the morning!" said Father, with his finger on a promise in the Psalms. Then there was silence for some time.

Mother Marshall's eyes suddenly lighted on an article headed, "My Class of Boys."

"Seth!" she said, with a beautiful light in her eyes. "You don't suppose maybe she'd be willing to take Stephen's class of boys in Sunday-school when she gets better? I can't bear to see them begin to stay away, and Deacon Grigsby admits he don't know how to manage them."

"Why, sure!" said Father, tenderly. "She'll take it, I've no doubt. She's that kind, I should think. And if she isn't now, Mother, she will be after she's been with you awhile!"

"Oh, now, Father!" said Mother, turning pink with pleasure. "Come, let's go up and see how the room looks at sunset!"

So arm in arm they climbed the front stairs and stood looking about on the glorified rosy background with its wilderness of cherry bloom about the frieze. Such a transformation of the dingy old room in such a little time! Arm in arm they went over to the window-seat and sat leaning stiffly against the two pink silk cushions, and looking out across the rosy sunset snow in the orchard, thinking wistfully of the boy that used to come whistling up that way and would never come to them so again. Then, just as Father drew a sigh, and a tear crept out on Mother's cheek (the side next the window), a long-hoped-for, unaccustomed sound burst out below-stairs! The telephone was ringing! It was Sunday evening at sunset, and the telephone was ringing!

Wildly they both sprang to their feet and clutched each other for a moment.

"I'll go, Mother," said Father, in an agitated voice. "You just sit right here and rest till I get back!"

"No! I'll go, too!" declared Mother, trotting after. "You might miss something and we ought to write it down!"

In breathless silence they listened for the magic words, Mother leaning close to catch them and trying to scratch them down on a corner of the telephone book with the stump of a pencil she kept for writing recipes:

"Your wonderful invitation accepted with deep gratitude!"

"What's that, Father? Make him say it over again!" cried Mother, scribbling away. "'Your wonderful invitation—(Oh, she liked it, then!) accepted'—She's coming, Father!"

"Will start as soon as possible!"

("Then she's really coming!")

"Probably Wednesday night."

("Then I'll have time to get some pink velvet and make a cushion for the little rocker. They do have pink velvet, I'm sure!")

"Will write."

("Then we'll really know what she's like if she writes!")

Mother Marshall's happy thoughts were in a tumult, but she had her head about her yet.

"Now, make him say it all over from the beginning again, Father, and see if we've got it right. You speak the words out as he says 'em, and I'll watch the writing."

And so at last the message was verified and the receiver hung up. They read the message over together, and they looked at each another with glad eyes.

"Now let us pray, Rachel!" said Father, with solemn, shaken voice of joy. And the two lonely old people knelt down by the little table on which stood the telephone and gave thanks to God for the child He was about to send to their empty home.

"Now," said Father Marshall, when they had risen, "I guess we better get a bite to eat. Seems like a long time since dinner. Any of that cold chicken left, Mother? And a few doughnuts and milk? And say, Mother, we better get the chores done up and get to bed early. I don't think you slept much last night, and we've got to get up early. There's a whole lot to do before she comes. We need to chirk up the rest of the house a bit. Somehow we've let things get down since Stephen went away."

Said Mother, as she landed the platter of cold chicken on the table, "How soon do you s'pose she'll write? I'm just aching to get that letter!"



CHAPTER XX

Gila had counted on an easy victory that evening. She had furnished for the occasion her keenest wit, her sweetest laughter, her finest derision, her most sparkling sarcasm; and as she and her escort joined the motley throng who were patiently making their way into the packed doorway she whetted them forth eagerly.

Even while they took their turn among the crowd she began to make keen little remarks about the company they were keeping, drawing her velvet robes away from contact with the throng.

Courtland, standing head and shoulders above her, his fine profile outlined against the brightness of the lighted doorway, was looking about with keen interest on the faces of the people, and wondering why they had come. Were they in search of the Presence? Had they, too, felt it there within those dingy walls? He glanced down at Gila with a hope that she, too, might see and understand to-night. What friends they might be—how they might talk these things over together—if only Gila would understand!

He wished she had had better sense than to array herself in such startling garments. He could see the curious glances turned her way; glances that showed she was misunderstood. He did not like it, and he reached down a protecting hand and took her arm, speaking to her gravely, just to show the bold fellows behind her that she was under capable escort. He did not hear her keen sallies at the expense of their fellow-worshipers. He was annoyed and trying by his serious mien to shelter her.

The singing was already going on as they entered. Just plain old gospel songs, sung just as badly, though with even more fervor, than in the morning. Courtland accepted the tattered hymn-book and put Gila into the seat the shabby usher indicated. He was wholly in the spirit of the gathering, and anxious only to feel the spell once more that had been about him in the morning. But Gila was so amused with her surroundings that she could scarcely pay attention to where she was to sit, and almost tripped over the end of the pew. She openly stared and laughed at the people around her, as though that was what Courtland had brought her there for, and kept nudging him and calling his attention to some grotesque figure.

Courtland was singing, joining his fine tenor in with the curious assembly and enjoying it. Gila recalled him each time from a realm of the spirit, and he would earnestly give attention to what she said, bending his ear to listen, then look seriously at the person indicated, try to appreciate her amusement with a nod and absent smile, and go on singing again! He was so absorbed in the gathering that her talk scarcely penetrated to his real soul.

If he had been trying to baffle Gila he could have used no more effective method, for the point of her jokes seemed blunted. She turned her eyes at last to her escort and began to study him, astonishment and chagrin in her countenance. Gradually both gave way to a kind of admiration and curiosity. One could not look at Courtland and not admire. The fine strength in his handsome young face and figure were always noticeable among a company anywhere, and here among these foreigners and wayfarers it was especially so. She was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in his presence that was new to her. Usually her attitude was to make others thrill at her presence! No man before had caught her fancy and held it like this rare one. What secret lay behind that grave strength of his that made him successfully resist those arts of hers that had readily lured other victims?

She watched him while he bowed his head in prayer, and noted how his rich, close-cut hair waved and crept about his temples; noted the curve of his chin and the curl of his lashes on his cheek. More and more she coveted him. And she must set herself to find and break this other power that had him in its clutches. She perfectly recognized the fact that it was entirely possible that she would not care for him after the other power was broken, and that she might have to toss him aside after he was fully hers. But what of that? Had she not so tossed many a hapless soul that had come like a moth to singe his wings in her candle-flame, then laughed at him gaily as he lay writhing in his pain; and tossed after him, torn and trampled, his own ideals of womanhood, too; so that all other women might henceforth be blighted in his eyes. Ah! What of that, so that unquenchable flame in her soul, that restlessly pursued and conquered and cast aside, might be satisfied? Was that not what women were made for, to conquer men and toss them away? If they did not would not men conquer them and toss them away? She was but fulfilling her womanhood as she had been taught to look upon it.

But there was something puzzling about Courtland that interested her deeply. She was not sure but it was half his charm. He really seemed to want to be good, to desire to resist evil. Most of the other men she knew had been all too ready to fall as lightly with as little earnestness as she into whatever doubtful paths her dainty feet had chanced to lead. Many of them would have led further than she would go, for she had her own limitations and conventions, strange as it may seem.

So Gila sat and meditated, with a strange, sweet thrill in the thought of a new experience; for, young as she was, she had found the pleasures of her existence pall upon her many times.

Suddenly her ear was caught by the sermon. The ugly little man in the pulpit, with the strange eyes that seemed to look through you, was telling a story of a garden, with One calling, and a pair of naked souls guilty and in fear before Him. It was as though she had been one of them! What right had he to flaunt such truths before a congregation?

She was not familiar enough with Bible truths to know where he got the story. It did not seem a story. It was just her Eden where she walked and ate what fruit she might desire every day without a thought of any command that might have been issued. She recognized no commands. What right had God to command her? The serpent had whispered early to her, "Thou shalt not surely die." Her only question was ever whether the fruit was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise. Till now there had been no Lord God walking in her garden in the cool of the day. Only her mother, and she was easy to evade. She had never been really afraid, nor felt her little soul naked till now, with the ugly little man's bright brown eyes upon her, and his words shivering through her like winds about the unprotected. Hideous things she had forgotten flung into view and challenged her; and somewhere in the room there seemed to be One who dared to call her to account. She looked fiercely back to the speaker, her delicate brows drawn darkly, her great blue-black eyes fierce in their intensity, her whole face and attitude a challenge to the sermon. Courtland, absorbed as he was in what the speaker had to say, thrilling with the message that came to his soul welcomely, became aware of the tense little figure by his side, and, looking down, was pleased that she had forgotten her nonsense and was listening, and somehow missed the defiance in her attitude.

Gila did not smile when service was over. She went out haughtily, impatiently, looking about on the throng contemptuously. When Courtland asked her if she would like to stop a minute and meet the preacher she threw up her chin with a toss and a "No, indeed!" that left no doubt for lingering.

Out in the street, away from the crowd somewhat, she suddenly stopped and stamped her little foot: "I think that man is perfectly disgusting!" she cried. "He ought to be arrested! I don't know why such a man is allowed at large!"