ity of the rector of St. Chad's--pride had been in
her voice and eyes.

"The man who said that was a true critic," her father had remarked.
"Electric light? Quite so. In the absence of sunlight the electric light
does extremely well for the requirements of the average man and woman.
Your critic said nothing about volts?"

That was how her father became irritating to her occasionally--leading
up to some phrase which he had in his collection of bric-a-brac.
"Volts!"

Yes, she felt that the sincerity of George Holland would alienate from
him all the people who had previously held him in high esteem. Although
she was a daughter of Philistia, it had never occurred to her that there
is such a thing as a _succes scandale_, and that the effect of such an
incident in connection with the rector of a fashionable church rarely
leads to his isolation.

She did George Holland more than justice, for she could not conceive his
looking forward to a crowded and interested attendance at his church on
the following Sunday and perhaps many successive Sundays. She could not
conceive his thinking what effect the noticing of such an attendance
would have upon her. To her, as to most girls, the heroic man is all
heroic. The picture of the Duke of Marlborough taking a list of the
linen to be sent to the wash while his troops were getting into position
for a great battle is one from which they turn away. She could not think
of George Holland's calculating upon the effect of a crowded church,
with newspaper reporters scattered throughout the building, taking down
every word that might fall from his lips. She regarded him as a man
who had been compelled, by the insidious influence of what he called
scientific thought, to write a shocking book; but one that he certainly
believed was destined to effect a great reform in the world. Her eyes
had filled with tears as he stood before her with the gleam of martyrdom
in his eyes, and for an instant she felt a woman's impulse--that was a
factor which George Holland had taken into consideration before he had
spoken--to give both her hands to him and to promise to stand by his
side in his hour of trial. But she thought of Ruth and restrained
herself. Before he had reached the door she thought of him as the man
from whom she had managed to escape before it was too late.

She wondered if any of those young women of the church, who had gone
back to their butterfly garments on hearing that Mr. Holland had as