silence a
sweet-toned clock on the mantel softly struck a half hour.

"Oh, I must be gone!" cried Miss Forrester, "and we haven't talked
about half--"

"Do stay to lunch," interrupted Winifred.

"Impossible, dear. I am due at home--half an hour ago!" and she
laughed at the discrepancy between her appointment and appearance.
"Good-by, Winnie." And she was off.

The two, very opposite in temperament, were very warm friends.
Winifred saw beneath a light exterior a quantity of good, sound sense
and a warm heart. She was a frequent guest at their house. Mrs. Gray
liked her, though deploring her occasional indulgence in slang. Mr.
Gray enjoyed her racy conversation, and Hubert professed a dislike of
her volatile qualities. This last fact grieved Winifred, who liked her
friend to be appreciated.

"She has a rather frivolous exterior," she once explained to Hubert,
"but she is really very sensible."

"One would like to hear from the sensible interior occasionally," he
replied, and Winifred withdrew from the defense. She was the more
grieved by his indifference to her friend because, with her quick
intuition, she had half guessed at a secret liking in Adele for her
cynical brother.

To-day at luncheon Winifred ventured to offer him the information:

"Adele Forrester was in to see me this morning."

"I heard her giggle," he replied laconically, and Winifred subsided
into silence.

CHAPTER V

IS GOD DEMONSTRABLE?

The scene of the morning in the garden haunted Hubert during the hours
of business that day. Matters were attended to with his accustomed
skill, but always an undercurrent of memory presented to him Winifred's
beaming face and her announcement, "I think I have begun to know God."

"I wish I knew Him. I wish I knew the truth," he repeated to himself
again and again.

Hubert had entered with heartiness into his father's business, and
though still young had already attained a partnership in it. "Robert
Gray & Son," read the clear, uncompromising sign, and the name of no
firm in the city was more respected. Hubert's devotion to business,
rather than to more scholarly pursuits, was a deep gratification to the
father, who enjoyed his son's fellowship and found help in his fresh
enterprise and keen foresight.

To-day Hubert was glad when the last matters were attended to and he
was able to go home. At dinner he was abstracted and silent, and
retired to his own apartments. Just off his sl