hy
do you ask such a foolish question?"

"Oh, I don't know; half the time it seems to me as if the religious
people were trying to humbug the world; because, you see, they don't act
as if they were in dead earnest--very few of them do, at least."

"That is a very easy thing to say, and people seem to be fond of saying
it," Ruth said: and then she simply would not talk on that subject or
any other; she was miserably unhappy; an awakened conscience, toyed
with, is a very fruitful source of misery. She was glad when the walk
was concluded.

"Shall I come in?" Mr. Wayne asked, lingering on the step, half smiling,
half wistful. "What do you advise, shall I go back to the club or call
on you?"

Now, Ruth hated that club; she was much afraid of its influence over her
friend; she had determined, as soon as she could plan a line of
operation, to set systematically at work to withdraw him from its
influence; but she was not ready for it yet. And, among other things
that she was not ready for, was a call from Mr. Wayne; it seemed to her
that in her present miserable, unsettled state it would be simply
impossible to carry on a conversation with him. True to her usually
frank nature, she answered, promptly:

"I have certainly no desire for you to go to the club, either on this
evening or any other; but, to be frank, I would rather be alone this
evening; I want to think over some matters of importance, and to decide
them. You will not think strangely of me for saying that, will you?"

"Oh, no," he said, and he smiled kindly on her; yet he was very much
disappointed; he showed it in his face.

Many a time afterward, as Ruth sat thinking over this conversation,
recalling every little detail of it, recalling the look on his face, and
the peculiar sadness in his eyes, she thought within herself, "If I had
said, 'Harold, I want you to come in; I want to talk with you; I want
you to decide now to live for Christ,' I wonder what he _would_ have
answered."

But she did not say it. Instead, she turned from him and went into the
house; and--he went directly to his club: an unaccountable gloom hung
over him; he must have companionship; if not with his chosen and
promised wife, then with the club. That was just what Ruth was to him;
and it was one of the questions that tormented her.

There were reasons why thought about it had forced itself upon her
during the last few days. She was pledged to him long before she found
this new expe