comfort, he said, as he reached
his own room. It would take half-an-hour to dress for dinner, and that
meal might be prolonged to cover another hour; but the evening still
stretched onward, seeming interminable to his restless fancy. It was a
relief when Brady came in and suggested that they drop in at a meeting
of the Salvation Army to be held at a slum post in a region of the
city known as Berry Hill.

"Will I go?" he said, echoing the question of his friend, who stood
looking out of the window with an appearance of indifference, which
deceived no one. "Yes, I will; but I want you to understand that I
don't go as you do, out of pure emotional piety, but only to see and
hear Nora Costello."

"Well, she is worth it, isn't she?" Brady responded.

"Worth a trip down-town? Without doubt; but that is not the question
that is lying down in the depths of the locality you are pleased to
call your heart. Come, now," he added, walking across to the window
and throwing his arm over Brady's shoulder with one of his rare
exhibitions of affection,--"come; make a clean breast of it, and let
us talk the thing out from A to Z. _Imprimis_, you are in love with
Nora Costello."

Brady started and moved away a trifle, but made no effort at denial
till after a minute, when he said rather weakly, "What makes you think
so?"

"_Think_ so! Why, man, I must be deaf, dumb, and blind not to _know_
it. Do you suppose I believed that a man at your time of life, brought
up as you have been, had suddenly gone daft on this Salvation Army
business?"

"It's a 'business', as you call it, that does more good than all the
churches put together," answered Brady, hotly.

"Hear him!" echoed Flint, mockingly.

"Hear this son of New England actually declaring that there may be a
way to heaven which does not lie between church-pews or start from a
pulpit!"

"Flint, you are a scoffer."

"What do I scoff at?"

"Religion."

"Pardon me, but I do not."

"Well, theology, anyway."

"Ah, that is a different matter."

"You call yourself an agnostic."

"No, I don't. 'Agnostic' is too long and too pretentious a word. I
prefer to translate it and call myself a know-nothing."

"Don't you believe in God and a future life--and--and all that sort of
thing?" Brady ended rather disjointedly.

"Don't you believe Mars is inhabited? and that the lines on its
surface are canals for irrigation?"

"I don't know," answered Brady, whose mental processes were si