llender's, and
saw by the light that the family were sitting together in the front
basement, his heart failed him, and he walked past the house and as far
as the next corner, where his Fate, his Daemon, his blind impulsion,
turned him back, and he did not falter again until he had rung the
door-bell; and then it was too late to withdraw.

"You are wet, Charley; sit nearer the register," said Phillida, when she
saw how the rain had beaten upon his trousers and how recklessly he had
plunged his patent-leather shoes into the street puddles. This little
attention to his comfort softened Millard's mood, but it was impossible
long to keep back the torrent of feeling. Phillida was alarmed at his
ominous abstraction.

"I don't care for the rain," he said.

"But you know there is a good deal of pneumonia about."

"I--I am not afraid of pneumonia," he said. "I might as well die as to
suffer what I do."

"What is the matter, Charley?" demanded Phillida, alarmed.

"Matter? Why, I have to sit in the club and hear you called a crank and
an impostor."

Phillida turned pale.

"Vulgar cads like Meadows," he gasped, "not fit for association with
gentlemen, call you a quack seeking after money, and will not be set
right. I came awfully near to punching his head."

"Why, Charley!"

"I should have done it, only I reflected that such an affray might drag
you into the newspapers. I tell you, Phillida, it is unendurable that
you should go on in this way."

Phillida's face was pale as death. She had been praying all the
afternoon that the bitterness of this cup might not be pressed to her
lips. She now saw that the issue was joined. She had vowed that not even
her love for the man dearest to her should swerve her from her course.
The abyss was under her feet, and she longed to draw back. She heard the
voice of duty in the tones of Mrs. Frankland saying: "If any man come to
me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my
disciple." It was a cruel alternative that was set before her, and she
trembled visibly.

"I--I can't neglect what I believe to be duty," she said. She wished
that, by some circumlocution or some tenderness in the tone, she could
have softened the words that she spoke, but all her forces had to be
rallied to utter the decision, and there was no power left to qualify
the bare words which sounded to Millard hard and cruel. A su