"Until then, I hadn't been inside of a church for fifteen years,--except
to get married. My wife takes the children, occasionally, to a
Presbyterian church near us."

"And why, did you go then?" she asked.

"I am a little ashamed of my motive," he confessed. "There were rumours
--I don't pretend to know how they got about--" he hesitated, once more
aware of delicate ground. "Wallis Plimpton said something to a man who
told me. I believe I went out of sheer curiosity to hear what Hodder
would have to say. And then, I had been reading, wondering whether there
were anything in Christianity, after all."

"Yes?" she said, careless now as to what cause he might attribute her
eagerness. "And he gave you something?"

It was then she grasped the truth that this sudden renewed intimacy was
the result of the impression Hodder had left upon the minds of both.

"He gave me everything," Bedloe Hubbell replied. "I am willing to
acknowledge it freely. In his explanation of the parable of the Prodigal
Son, he gave me the clew to our modern times. What was for me an
inextricable puzzle has become clear as day. He has made me understand,
at last, the force which stirred me, which goaded me until I was fairly
compelled to embark in the movement which the majority of our citizens
still continue to regard as quixotic. I did not identify that force with
religion, then, and when I looked back on the first crazy campaign we
embarked upon, with the whole city laughing at me and at the obscure
and impractical personnel we had, there were moments when it seemed
incomprehensible folly. I had nothing to gain, and everything to lose by
such a venture. I was lazy and easy-going, as you know. I belonged to
the privileged class, I had sufficient money to live in comparative
luxury all my days, I had no grudge against these men whom I had known
all my life."

"But it must have had some beginning," said Alison.

"I was urged to run for the city council, by these very men." Bedloe
Hubbell smiled at the recollection. "They accuse me now of having
indulged once in the same practice, for which I am condemning them.
Our company did accept rebates, and we sought favours from the city
government. I have confessed it freely on the platform. Even during my
first few months in the council what may be called the old political
practices seemed natural to me. But gradually the iniquity of it all
began to dawn on me, and then I couldn't rest until I had done s