d bravely; and he was
immensely relieved when Bryerson, making quite sure of his identity,
became effusively hospitable.

"Cap'n Gordon's boy--'f cou'se; didn't make out to know ye, 't firs'.
Come awn in the house an' sit a spell; come in, I say!"

Again, for Nan's sake, Tom could do no less. It was the final plunge.
The boy was come of abstinent stock, which was possibly the reason why
the smell of the raw corn liquor with which the cabin reeked gripped him
so fiercely. Be that as it may, he could make but a feeble resistance
when the tipsy mountaineer pressed him to drink; and the slight barrier
went down altogether when he saw the appealing look in Nan's eyes.
Straightway he divined that there would be consequences for her when he
was gone if the maudlin devil should be aroused in her father.

So he put the tin cup to his lips and coughed and strangled over a
single swallow of the fiery, nauseating stuff; did this for the girl's
sake, and then rose and fled away down the mountain with his heart
ablaze and a fearful clamor as of the judgment trumpet sounding in his
ears.

For now the sleeping conscience was broad awake and plying its merciless
dagger; now, indeed, he knew very well what he had done--what he had
been doing since that fatal moment at the barrel-spring when he had
fallen under the spell of Nan Bryerson's beauty; nay, back of that--how
the up-bubbling of zeal had been nothing more than wounded vanity; the
smoke of a vengeful fire of anger lighted by a desire to strike back at
those who had laughed at him.

The next morning he came hollow-eyed to his breakfast, and when the
chance offered, besought his father to give him one of the many boy's
jobs in the iron plant during the summer vacation--asked and obtained.

And neither the hotel on the mountain top nor the hovel cabin under the
second cliff saw him more the long summer through.

XIII

A SISTER OF CHARITY

It was just before the Christmas holidays, in his fourth year of the
sectarian school, that Tom Gordon was expelled.

Writing to the Reverend Silas at the moment of Tom's dismissal, the
principal could voice only his regret and disappointment. It was a most
singular case. During his first and second years Thomas had set a high
mark and had attained to it. On the spiritual side he had been somewhat
non-committal, to be sure, but to offset this, he had been deeply
interested in the preparatory theological studies, or at least he ha