straggling double line of lights, glowing radiantly against the
black-green of the trees. This recalled to Theron that he had heard that
the town council lit the street lamps by the almanac, and economized gas
when moonshine was due. The idea struck him as droll, and he dwelt
upon it in various aspects, smiling at some of its comic possibilities.
Looking up in the middle of one of these whimsical conceits, the
sportive impulse died suddenly within him. He realized that it was dark,
and that the massive black bulk reared against the sky on the other side
of the road was the Catholic church. The other fact, that he had been
there walking to and fro for some time, was borne in upon him more
slowly. He turned, and resumed the pacing up and down with a still more
leisurely step, musing upon the curious way in which people's minds all
unconsciously follow about where instincts and intuitions lead.

No doubt it was what Sister Soulsby had said about Catholics which had
insensibly guided his purposeless stroll in this direction. What a
woman that was! Somehow the purport of her talk--striking, and even
astonishing as he had found it--did not stand out so clearly in his
memory as did the image of the woman herself. She must have
been extremely pretty once. For that matter she still was a most
attractive-looking woman. It had been a genuine pleasure to have her in
the house--to see her intelligent responsive face at the table--to have
it in one's power to make drafts at will upon the fund of sympathy and
appreciation, of facile mirth and ready tenderness in those big eyes of
hers. He liked that phrase she had used about herself--"a good fellow."
It seemed to fit her to a "t." And Soulsby was a good fellow too. All at
once it occurred to him to wonder whether they were married or not.

But really that was no affair of his, he reflected. A citizen of the
intellectual world should be above soiling his thoughts with mean
curiosities of that sort, and he drove the impertinent query down again
under the surface of his mind. He refused to tolerate, as well, sundry
vagrant imaginings which rose to cluster about and literalize the
romance of her youth which Sister Soulsby had so frankly outlined.
He would think upon nothing but her as he knew her,--the kindly,
quick-witted, capable and charming woman who had made such a brilliant
break in the monotony of life at that dull parsonage of his. The
only genuine happiness in life must consist