er's west-most reach.

Thus the pair remained for several moments. Then Blake looked slowly
about at the minister.

"I brought you down here because there is something I want to tell
you," he said calmly.

"I supposed so; go ahead," responded Doctor Sherman in a choked voice,
his eyes upon the ground.

"You seem somewhat disturbed," remarked Blake in the same cold, even
tone.

"Disturbed!" cried Doctor Sherman. "Disturbed!"

His voice told how preposterously inadequate was the word. He did not
lift his eyes, but sat silent a moment, his white hands crushing one
another, his face bent upon the rotted wood beneath his feet.

"It's that business to-morrow!" he groaned; and at that he suddenly
sprang up and confronted Blake. His fine face was wildly haggard and
was working in convulsive agony. "My God," he burst out, "when I look
back at myself as I was four years ago, and then look at myself as I
am to-day--oh, I'm sick, sick!" A hand gripped the cloth over his
breast. "Why, when I came to Westville I was on fire to serve God with
all my heart and never a compromise! On fire to preach the new gospel
that the way to make people better is to make this an easier world for
people to be better in!"

That passion-shaken figure was not a pleasant thing to look upon.
Blake turned his eyes back to the glistening river and the sun, and
steeled himself.

"Yes, I remember you preached some great sermons in those days," he
commented in his cold voice. "And what happened to you?"

"You know what happened to me!" cried the young minister with his wild
passion. "You know well enough, even if you were not in that group of
prominent members who gave me to understand that I'd either have to
change my sermons or they'd have to change their minister!"

"At least they gave you a choice," returned Blake.

"And I made the wrong choice! I was at the beginning of my career--the
church here seemed a great chance for so young a man--and I did not
want to fail at the very beginning. And so--and so--I compromised!"

"Do you suppose you are the first man that has ever made a
compromise?"

"That compromise was the direct cause of to-morrow!" the young
clergyman went on in his passionate remorse. "That compromise was the
beginning of my fall. After the prominent members took me up, favoured
me, it became easy to blink my eyes at their business methods. And
then it became easy for me to convince myself that it would be all
right for me t