perience. How could he, though, when the whole mental
situation had evolved itself over his kicking against the pricks
administered to his old-time idol? To discuss the matter with Reed
Opdyke would have been equivalent to sticking a knife into him, and
then inviting him to take a microscope and study the composition of the
drops that oozed up around the knife blade.

And then, one day, he yielded to temptation, and went to call upon Reed
Opdyke, not to indulge in theoretical discussion concerning the
accident viewed as an exponent of universal truths; but for the simple
sake of seeing his old friend and exchanging greetings. Indeed, where
was the use of wasting the good material of friendship by seeking to
convert it to a touchstone whereby to measure up one's theological
beliefs? Reed was Reed, albeit flattened out upon his long, lean back,
and not a culture-pan for psychological germs.

A good deal to his own regret, Brenton met Olive Keltridge on the
Opdyke's steps.

"I'm so glad you've come, Mr. Brenton," she said cordially, as she gave
him her hand in greeting. "Reed has been wondering what had become of
you. No; not that, exactly. My father and I both had told him that
Saint Peter's was working you to death. Still, he has missed you, and
his father is actually pathetic in his mourning. He told me, yesterday,
that you had never seen his new hood. Really, it sounded rather
feminine, his pride in that new hood of his. You'd have thought it must
be a creation of chiffon and ermine, not of ordinary brick and mortar.
How is Mrs. Brenton?"

"Quite well, thank you."

The maid was slow about appearing, and Olive chatted on, by way of
filling up the time.

"I'm glad. It is two weeks or so, since I have seen her. She told me
then that she hardly caught a glimpse of you, all day long. Indeed, she
was almost as pathetic about it as Professor Opdyke. It really is too
bad for the church to keep you quite so busy."

"But, if it is my work?" Brenton interrupted banally, for, in his
secret heart, he was painfully aware that it was not the church alone
which kept him so preoccupied that his preoccupation had come to be an
occupation on its own account.

"Your work needn't be suicidal," Olive objected. "My father, even, says
it is taking it out of you rather badly, and he insists that they must
hurry about the curate. Seven hours a day is enough for any man, he
says; and he declares that you are working twenty. In fact," O