laughter and whispered curses.

At length the day for the dinner came. James had procured an
invitation, and he made unusual personal preparations for it. He was
conscious that he was going to do a very mean action, but he would
look as well as possible in the act. He had even his apology for it
ready; he would say that "as long as it was a private wrong he had
borne the loss patiently for twenty years, but that the public welfare
demanded honest men, men above reproach, and he could no longer feel
it his duty," etc., etc.

After he was dressed he bid Christine "Good-by."

"He would only stay an hour," he said, "and he must needs go, as
Donald was her kin."

Then he went to the desk, and with hands trembling in their eagerness
sought the bill. It was not there. _Impossible!_ He looked
again--again more carefully--could not believe his eyes, and looked
again and again. It was really gone. If the visible hand of God had
struck him, he could not have felt it more consciously. He
mechanically closed the desk and sat down like one stunned. Cain might
have felt as James did when God asked him, "Where is thy brother?" He
did not think of prayer. No "God be merciful to me a sinner" came as
yet from his dry, white lips. The fountains of his heart seemed dry as
dust. The anger of God weighed him down till

"He felt as one
Who, waking after some strange, fevered dream,
Sees a dim land and things unspeakable,
And comes to know at last that it is hell."

Meantime Christine was lying with folded hands, praying for him. She
knew what an agony he was going through, and ceaselessly with pure
supplications she prayed for his forgiveness. About midnight one came
and told him his wife wanted to see him. He rose with a wretched sigh,
and looked at the clock. He had sat there six hours. He had thought
over everything, over and over--the certainty that the paper was
there, the fact that no other paper had been touched, and that no
human being but Christine knew of the secret place. These things
shocked him beyond expression. It was to his mind a visible assertion
of the divine prerogative; he had really heard God say to him,
"Vengeance is mine." The lesson that in these materialistic days we
would reason away, James humbly accepted. His religious feelings were,
after all, his deepest feelings, and in those six hours he had so
palpably felt the frown of his angry Heavenly Father that he had quite
forgotten his poor, puny w