ession of bewildered shadows.

"It is hard for me to grasp this," he said at last with a grief-laden
voice. "It is hard for me to realize that two men serving the same God;
both preaching His Word with identical earnestness could be so at
variance that the concept of one should give mortal hurt to the other."

They sat in silence until the sunset pageantry had dimmed to twilight.
Then the man spoke again, guardedly.

"You said something about warping your life for your father's sake. I
wonder if--well, I wonder if there's anything it would help you to talk
about--not to the minister but to the friend."

She met his gaze with one of equal directness, and he could see an
impulse, rather hungry and eager, dawn only to be repressed in her eyes.
At last she shook her head. "No," she answered. "But it's good of you to
ask me. No, there's nothing that talking about will mend."

* * * * *

Eben Tollman's effort at being young was not wholly successful. There
were times when even he suspected that it lacked something of complete
attainment. He had now been married six months and his wife, though
undeniably loyal, was as far as ever from kindling into that eager fire
of complete love which he had boasted he would awaken in her.

When Conscience had warned him that their marriage would be an
incomplete relationship Tollman had inwardly smiled. Of her faithfulness
he could be sure and she herself would be his. The rest was a somewhat
gossamer and idealistic matter which her youth exaggerated in
importance.

But after six months, possession was no longer enough--and it was all he
had. Sometimes indeed it seemed to him that the thing he lacked was
greater than the sum of the things he possessed.

He had boasted that in indulging her wishes he found his highest
privilege and pleasure, but he was of those who take their pleasures
sadly. He had given her unrestricted permission to remodel his house,
yet in every fresh detail of the alteration he discovered an act of
vandalism under which his spirit writhed.

To his mind everything gained in sanctity by its age: the moth-eaten
furniture was hallowed by tradition. The rheumatic old dog of uncertain
breed, to which he had never vouchsafed a caress became now, when
banished to the stable, a tried and faithful companion relegated to
exile.

Privacy, he conceived as a matter of being shut in, and a house without
cobwebbed shadows became a place bere