ged everything.

"I wonder what Alice Lister is doing now," thought the boy presently.
He did not know why it was, but somehow God seemed more real when he
thought of the girl who had promised to pray for him.

[1] This incident was described to me as having actually taken place as
I have set it down here.

CHAPTER VI

What was Alice Lister doing on the night when Tom prayed? If it had
been a night of wonder to Tom, it had been a night of decision to Alice
Lister, who had to face another crisis in her life. While Tom had been
offering his almost inarticulate prayer in the trenches in the Ypres
salient, Alice Lister sat alone in her bedroom.

More than a year had passed since the Sunday afternoon when she had
told Tom that he must make his choice between her and the life he
seemed determined to lead. What it had cost her to do this I will not
try to describe, for Alice had truly cared for Tom. It was true that
he did not quite belong to her class, and it was also true that her
parents had done their best to dissuade her from thinking about him;
but Alice had been fond of Tom: something, she knew not what, had drawn
her heart towards him. She had believed in him too; believed that he
was possessed of noble qualities which only she understood. Then as
she saw Tom drifting, she knew that her decisive step must be taken,
and she had taken it.

Afterwards, when she was told how Tom had risen in the great crowd at
the hall in the Mechanics' Institute, and had gone up to the platform
and volunteered for active service, her heart had thrilled strangely.
She did not understand much about the war, but she felt that Tom had
done a noble thing. In spite of the fact, too, that he had left her to
walk out with Polly Powell, she had a sense of possession; it seemed to
her that Tom belonged to her more than to this highly coloured buxom
girl who had taken him from her.

Then something happened which set the people at the church she attended
talking freely. The young minister was a bachelor, and it was evident
he was enamoured with Alice; he paid her marked attention, and eagerly
sought to be in her company.

"That's something like," said many of Alice's friends; "Alice will make
a splendid minister's wife."

But when at length Mr. Skelton proposed to Alice, she had no difficulty
in answering him. He could offer her a far better position than Tom
dreamed of; the work she would have to do as a minister's wife