the doctor in a low growl.

Courtland was off again, glad of something to do. He carried the memory
of the doctor's grizzled face lying on the little bared breast of the
child, listening for the heart-beats, and the beautiful girl's anguish
as she stood above them. He pushed aside the curious throng that had
gathered around the door and were looking up the stairs, whispering
dolefully and shaking heads:

"An' he was so purty, and so cheery, bless his heart!" wailed one woman.
"He always had his bit of a word an' a smile!"

"Aw! Them ottymobbeels!" he heard another murmur. "Ridin' along in
their glory! They'll be a day o' reckonin' fer them rich folks what
rides in 'em! They'll hev to walk! They may even have to lie abed an'
hev their wages get behind!"

The whole weight of the sorrow of the world seemed suddenly pressing
upon Courtland's heart. How had he been thus unexpectedly taken out of
the pleasant monotony of the university and whirled into this vortex of
anguish! Why had it been? Was it just happen that he should have been
the one to have gone to the old woman and made her toast, and then been
called upon to pray, instead of Tennelly or Bill Ward or any of the
other fellows? And after that was it again just coincidence that he
should have happened to stand at that corner at that particular moment
and been one to participate in this later tragedy? Oh, the beautiful
face of the suffering girl! Fear and sorrow and suffering and death
everywhere! Wittemore hurrying to his dying mother! The old woman lying
on her bed of pain! But there had been glory in that dark old room when
he left it, the glory of a Presence! Ah! Where was the Presence now? How
could _He_ bear all this? The Christ! And could He not change it if He
would--make the world a happy place instead of this dark and dreadful
thing that it was? For the first time the horror of war surged over his
soul in its blackness. Men dying in the trenches! Women weeping at home
for them! Others suffering and bleeding to death out in the open, the
cold or the storm! How could God let it all be? His wondering soul cried
out, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here!"

It was the old question that used to come up in the class-room, yet now,
strangely enough, he began to feel there was an answer to it somewhere;
an answer wherewith he would be satisfied when he found it.

It seemed an eternity of thought through which he passed as he crossed
and recrossed the street and was