t he had not yet
given.

"Why don't you accept a small allowance?" he inquired quietly. "Or,
better still, why don't you let me know how much it will take and let
me do it? I'd like to feel that I was represented in France--by you," he
added.

And suddenly the rector remembered. He was most uncomfortable, and very
flushed.

"Thanks. I can't let you do that, of course."

"Why not?"

"Because, hang it all, Clayton, I'm not a parasite. I took the car,
because it enabled me to do my parish work better. But I'm not going to
run off to war and let you keep my family."

Clayton glanced at him, at his fine erect old figure, his warmly flushed
face. War did strange things. There was a new light in the rector's once
worldly if kindly eyes. He had the strained look of a man who sees great
things, as yet far away, and who would hasten toward them. Insensibly he
quickened his pace.

"But I can't go myself, so why can't I send a proxy?"

Clayton asked, smiling. "I've an idea I'd be well represented."

"That's a fine way to look at it, but I can't do it. I've saved
something, not much, but it will do for a year or two. I'm glad you made
the offer, though. It was like you, and--it showed me the way. I can't
let any man, or any group of men, finance my going."

And he stuck to it. Clayton, having in mind those careful canvasses of
the congregation of Saint Luke's which had every few years resulted in
raising the rector's salary, was surprised and touched. After all, war
was like any other grief. It brought out the best or the worst in us. It
roused or it crushed us.

The rector had been thinking.

"I'm a very fortunate man," he said, suddenly. "They're standing
squarely behind me, at home. It's the women behind the army that will
make it count, Clayton."

Clayton said nothing.

"Which reminds me," went on the rector, "that I find Mrs. Valentine has
gone away. I called on her to-day, and she has given up her apartment.
Do you happen to know where she is? She has left no address."

"Gone away?" Clayton repeated. "Why, no. I hadn't heard of it."

There in the busy street he felt a strange sense of loneliness. Always,
although he did not see her, he felt her presence. She walked the same
streets. For the calling, if his extremity became too great, he could
hear her voice over the telephone. There was always the hope, too,
of meeting her. Not by design. She had forbidden that. But some times
perhaps God would be good to