if you can. Do you care for Mr. Bauer?"

Helen bent her head and warm colour flowed over her cheeks, then she
looked up.

"No, mother, not that way."

Mrs. Douglas sighed and said to herself, "Poor Bauer. He will have to
outlive it somehow. I hope his studies will help him out."

That was what Bauer was saying to himself back in Burrton after that
eventful Christmas vacation. He had parted with the family in a cheerful
fashion, but all his self-possession and restraint and feeling of utter
hopelessness regarding Helen could not prevent his giving her a look
that told his story as plain as day when he said good-bye. Helen had
gone upstairs and cried half the forenoon at the memory of Bauer's face.
But Bauer did not know that. Neither did he know that the very fact of
his silence had made Helen think favourably towards him. He had at least
succeeded in securing a place in Helen's exclusive list of possible
lovers, for she was obliged to confess as the days went on that she
missed Felix Bauer, and that she could not say of him as she could of
all her other admirers that she was superior to him.

It might have gone badly with Felix Bauer at this crisis in his life if
an event had not occurred which compelled him to come to Walter's
assistance. This event was as unexpected to Walter as anything could be.
And the suddenness of it smote both the friends for a time into a
condition of mutual dependence.

The President of Burrton followed the custom in other schools of
inviting some well known speaker to have charge of the chapel services
for special lectures or religious addresses. When the announcement was
made that Dr. Powers, the eminent scholar and theologian, would preach
at Burrton on a special date, Walter and Bauer both planned to go, and
when the time came they found themselves in the audience with one of the
largest crowds that had ever gathered at Burrton Chapel service.

The address was on the subject of "Modern Belief." As the speaker went
on, Walter, who had at first not paid close attention, began to fasten
his whole hearted and minded interest on the statements that were being
made. As the talk went on, Walter felt as if all the ground of his
religious faith was slipping out from under him. The speaker gradually
unfolded a universe of religious thought from which all the miracles
were excluded. There was no reason, he said, for believing in the
superhuman or the wonderful. Everything in the Bible could be