boots laced high to meet her brief gray
skirts, silver hat with a single velvet rose on the brim to match the
soft rose-bloom on her cheeks. Gila with eyes as wide and innocent as a
baby's, cupid mouth curved sweetly in a gracious, shy smile, and dainty
little prayer-book done in gray suede held devoutly in her little gloved
hand.

"Who's that?" growled Tennelly, admiringly, when they had passed a
suitable distance.

"Why, that's Bill Ward's cousin, Gila Dare," announced Courtland,
graciously. He was still basking in the pleasure of her smile, and
thinking how different she looked from last evening in this soft, gray,
silvery effect. Yes, he had misjudged her. A girl who could look like
that must be sweet and pure and unspoiled. It had been that unfortunate
dress last night that had reminded him unpleasantly of the scarlet woman
and the awful night of the fire. If he ever got well enough acquainted
he would ask her never to wear red again; it made her appear sensual;
and even she, delicate and sweet as she was, could not afford to cast a
thought like that into the minds of her beholders. It was then he began
to idealize Gila.

"Gila Dare!" Tennelly straightened up and took notice. So that was the
invincible Gila! That little soft-eyed exquisite thing with the hair
like a midnight cloud.

"Some looker!" he commented, approvingly, and wished he were in
Courtland's shoes.

"She's got in her work all right," he commented to himself. "Old Court's
fallen already. Guess I'll have to buy a straw hat, it'll be more
edible."

Courtland was like his gay old self when he got back to the dormitory.
He joked a great deal. His eyes were bright and his color better than it
had been since he was sick. He said nothing about the morning service,
and by and by Bill Ward ventured a question: "What kind of a harangue
did you hear this morning?"

"Rotten!" he answered, promptly, and turned away. Somehow that question
recalled him to the uneasiness within his soul for which he had sought
solace in the church service. He became silent again, and, strolling
away into Stephen's room and closing the door, sat down.

There was something strange about that room. The Presence seemed always
to be there. It hadn't made itself felt in the church at all, as he had
half hoped it would. He had taken Tennelly with him because he wanted
something tangible, friendly, sane, from the world he knew, to give him
ballast. If the Presence had been in the