and they patted him on the back approvingly in their
drawing-rooms. He was immensely popular. Perhaps his wonderful masculine
beauty was responsible for much of the interest he excited. It certainly
captivated Mary Herresford, a girl of nineteen, who was among those
bewitched. She adored the young preacher, whom later she married
secretly; and the red flame of their passionate love had never died down.
The wealthy father of the bride had only forgiven them to the extent of
presenting his daughter with the property on Riverside Drive, where they
had since made their home, to the considerable inconvenience of the
rector himself. Soon after the marriage, John Swinton had taken the
rectorship of St. Botolph's, that great church planned for the betterment
of the most hopeless slums. The clergyman's admirers believed that this
was but the beginning of magnificent achievements. On the contrary, the
result threatened disaster to his good-standing before the world. The
population of the parish grew in poverty, rather than in grace. The
rector was a man of ideals, generous to a fault. His means were small;
his bounty was great. The income enjoyed by his wife did not count. Old
Herresford allowed his daughter only sufficient for her personal needs,
which were, naturally, rather extravagant, for she had been reared and
had lived always in the atmosphere of wealth.

Matters were further complicated by the fact that Mrs. Swinton, though
she adored her husband, hated his parish cordially. She belonged to the
aristocracy, and she had no thought of tearing herself from the life with
which she was familiar, while her husband, on the contrary, doted on his
parish and avoided, so far as he might, the company of the frivolous
idlers who were his wife's companions. Husband and wife, therefore,
agreed to differ, and to be satisfied with love. After their son was
born, the wife drifted back to her old life, and was a most welcome
figure in the gayest society. Yet, no scandal was ever associated with
her name, and none sneered at her love for her husband. The rector, when
he yielded to her persuasions and accompanied her on social excursions,
was as welcome as she; and everybody proclaimed Mrs. Swinton a clever
woman to be able to live two entirely-different lives at the same time,
with neither overlapping. At forty, she was still young and beautiful,
with a ripe maturity that only the tender crow's feet about the corners
of the eyes betrayed t