-day would have been different. He would
be facing the world, not turning his back to it.

Brooding over the dying fire, his eyes were stern. If it had been his
fault, he would have taken his punishment without flinching. But to be
overthrown by an act of chivalry--to be denied the expression of that
which surged within him. Daily he bent over a desk, doing the work
that any man might do, he who had been carried on the shoulders of his
fellow students, he whose voice had rung with a clarion call!

In the lower hall, a door was again opened, and now there were
footsteps ascending. Then he heard a little laugh. "I've found
her--Aunt Isabelle, she insists upon going up."

He clicked off his light and very carefully opened his door. Mary was
in the lower hall, the heavy gray cat hugged up in her arms. She wore
a lace boudoir cap, and a pale blue dressing-gown trailed after her.
Seen thus, she was exquisitely feminine. Faintly through his
consciousness flitted Porter Bigelow's name for her--Contrary Mary.
Why Contrary? Was there another side which he had not seen? He had
heard her flaming words to Barry, "If I were a man--I'd make the world
move----" and he had been for the moment repelled. He had no sympathy
with modern feminine rebellions. Women were women. Men were men. The
things which they had in common were love, and that which followed, the
home, the family. Beyond these things their lives were divided,
necessarily, properly.

He groped his way back through the darkness to the tower window, opened
it and leaned out. The rain beat upon his face, the wind blew his hair
back, and fluttered the ends of his loose tie. Below him lay the
storm-swept city, its lights faint and flickering. He remembered a
test which he had chosen on a night like this.

"O Lord, Thou art my God. I will exalt Thee, I will praise Thy name,
for Thou hast done wonderful things; Thou hast been a strength to the
poor, a strength to the needy in distress . . . a refuge from the
storm----"

How the words came back to him, out of that vivid past. But
to-night--why, there was no--God! Was he the fool who had once seen
God--in a storm?

He shut the window, and finding a heavy coat and an old cap put them
on. Then he made his way, softly, down the tower steps to the side
door. Mary had pointed out to him that this entrance would make it
possible for him to go and come as he pleased. To-night it pleased him
to walk in the b