But he could bind Lyman to secrecy. "I wonder," he mused,
"that I should have any faith in his word, but I have. Confound him,
he has upset us all. But I ought to warn him. It is terrible to be
taken out and whipped upon the bare back. I'll make him promise and
then I'll tell him."

He crossed the street and began slowly to climb the stairs. He reached
the first landing and halted. "It won't do," he said. "Sawyer might
find it out and that would ruin everything. I advised against it; I
have done my best to prevent it, and it is now no concern of mine. I
will go home. I have been foolish."

He turned about and walked rapidly down the stairs. When he reached
home his daughter had gone to bed, but his wife was sitting up,
waiting for him. She met him at the door and looked at him,
searchingly, as he halted in the light of the hall lamp to put the
umbrella in the rack.

"Did you see him?" she asked, not in the best of humor, now that the
worry was practically over.

"Sawyer? No, he's out in the country, so a man told me. I have decided
to dismiss the matter from my mind or to think about it as little as
possible. It isn't so very late yet," he added, looking at his watch.
He found his slippers beside his chair when he entered the
sitting-room, but he shoved them away with his foot.

"Did Mr. Menifee have anything of interest to say?" he asked, leaning
with his elbows on the table.

"It may not interest you, but it has been put to Eva and me as a
matter of duty, that we ought to go out to Mt. Zion to hear Henry
Bostic preach."

McElwin grunted: "Menifee may put it as a matter of duty, but I
don't. Fortunately I have other duties that are of much more
importance. I will not go."

"He didn't seem to expect that you would," she replied.

"I hope not. He may have reason to believe me worldly in some things,
but I trust he has never found me ridiculous."

"Would it be ridiculous to hear that young man preach?"

"For me to hear him? Decidedly. The true gospel has not been handed
over to the keeping of the malicious idiot, I hope."

"I believe he is sincere."

"Sincere? Of course he is. So is a wasp when it stings you."

She laughed in her dignified way, her good humor having suddenly
returned; and he looked up with a smile, pleased with himself. They
sat for a time, talking of other matters, and he went to bed humming
the defineless tune of self-satisfaction. But late in the night Mrs.
McElwin awoke and found hi