me new trouble. He seems changed. I can't
describe it now, but I will tell you about it . . . . It's the first
time we've all three been together since my mother died, for Preston
wasn't back from college when I went to Paris to study . . . ."

They stood together on the pavement before the massive house, fraught
with so many and varied associations for Hodder. And as he looked up at
it, his eye involuntarily rested upon the windows of the boy's room where
Eldon Parr had made his confession. Alison startled him by pronouncing
his name, which came with such unaccustomed sweetness from her lips.
"You will write me to-morrow," she said, "after you have seen the bishop?"

"Yes, at once. You mustn't let it worry you."

"I feel as if I had cast off that kind of worry forever. It is only
--the other worries from which we do not escape, from which we do not wish
to escape."

With a wonderful smile she had dropped his hands and gone in at the
entrance, when a sound made them turn, the humming of a motor. And even
as they looked it swung into Park Street.

"It's a taxicab!" she said. As she spoke it drew up almost beside them,
instead of turning in at the driveway, the door opened, and a man
alighted.

"Preston!" Alison exclaimed.

He started, turning from the driver, whom he was about to pay. As for
Hodder, he was not only undergoing a certain shock through the sudden
contact, at such a moment, with Alison's brother: there was an additional
shock that this was Alison's brother and Eldon Parr's son. Not that his
appearance was shocking, although the well-clad, athletic figure was
growing a trifle heavy, and the light from the side lamps of the car
revealed dissipation in a still handsome face. The effect was a subtler
one, not to be analyzed, and due to a multitude of preconceptions.

Alison came forward.

"This is Mr. Hodder, Preston," she said simply.

For a moment Preston continued to stare at the rector without speaking.
Suddenly he put out his hand.

"Mr. Hodder, of St. John's?" he demanded.

"Yes," answered Hodder. His surprise deepened to perplexity at the warmth
of the handclasp that followed.

A smile that brought back vividly to Hodder the sunny expression of the
schoolboy in the picture lightened the features of the man.

"I'm very glad to see you," he said, in a tone that left no doubt of its
genuine quality.

"Thank you," Hodder replied, meeting his eye with kindness, yet with a
scrutiny that sough